Willowfly Leuctra geniculata

 I founnd this little insect, about one centimeter long, on my car windscreen when I parked near Waskerley beck at Wolsingham in Weardale yesterday. I'm pretty sure its a willowfly Leuctra geniculata, a member of the family of needleflies within the order Plecoptera, the stoneflies. 

Needleflies' name comes from the way they tend to fold their wings tightly around their abdomen, making the insect appear slender and pointed.

It's a common insect but an encouraging sign of good water quality in the beck - stoneflies' aquatic larval stages need clean, well oxygenated water and have a low tolerance of pollutants.

Some recent fungal finds

 After a summer drought, followed by a mild and wet September and early October, it's turning out to be a very good autumn for fungal forays. 

Here are a few toadstools that I've encountered recently. I struggle a bit with identifying fungi and sometimes find that field guides are confusing, not least because most only show toadstools at the peak perfection of their development, so any  found that are in early or late stages of growth or decay are harder to name with real confidence.

A birch bolete Leccinum scabrum, always associated with birch trees. An aging specimen in Durham University Botanic Garden, at the point where its convex cap begins to soften, flatten and then become concave.

An easy one - sulphur tuft Hypholoma fasciculare on a dead tree stump in Durham University Botanic Garden.

A perfect cluster of what I think are shaggy parasols Chlorophyllum (Macrolepiota) rhacodes in Durham University Botanic Garden. They’ll get taller, and their caps flatter, as they mature.

The true parasol mushroom is edible, said to be excellent, but apparently shaggy parasols can cause stomach upsets in some people. There’s a surprising number of smaller parasol-related species, collectively known as dapperlings, of variable edibility, including one - Lepiota brunneo-incarnata that’s deadly poisonous and contains the same toxin as death cap so, as with all toadstool eating, accurate identification is essential.

 A sepia bolete Boletus porosporus has risen through last autumn’s dead beach leaves. under the hedge in my own garden. Isn’t that crazy-paving pattern of cracks on the cap wonderful? It’s one of the less common Boletus species and this is the first time I’ve seen it in the garden. Every year more toadstools appear here, perhaps because I rake all the autumn leaves into the beds and borders, where they decay and add humus to the soil, just as they do in woodland.

Found growing under an old yew in St. Brandon's churchyard, Brancepeth. I don't know what this beauty is and need to go back for a second look when the cap has expanded. There's a ring around the stipe and I suspect it's a species of agaric or maybe one of the parasols.

I think these may be young puffballs, possibly Lycoperdon perlatum, but I need to go back for another look when they've matured a bit. They are growing through a layer of stone chips surrounding a memorial.

Parasol Macrolepiota procera or more likely P. konradii in the grounds of the Bowes museum in Barnard Castle.

An older specimen of parasol Macrolepiota procera or P. konradii in the grounds of the Bowes museum in Barnard Castle. The chunky scales on the cap (see previous image) have flattened out as the cap expanded - the appearance of many toadstools changes as they age.

The very common lumpy bracket Trametes gibbosa on a decaying tree stump in the grounds of the Bowes museum, Barnard Castle. A long-lived bracket, often discoloured by a layer of green algae as it ages.

I think these may be shaggy scalycaps Pholiota squarrosa and common inkcaps Coprinopsis atramentaria sharing a decaying tree stump in the grounds of the Bowes museum, Barnard Castle.

Common  inkcaps Coprinus comatus with their caps in the final stages of autodigestion,  in the grounds of the Bowes museum, Barnard Castle. In another couple of days the only evidence of their existences will be an inky stain on the ground, loaded with spores.

Turkey tails Trametes (Coriolus) versicolor on a decaying alder stump at Low Barns Nature Reserve, Witton-le-Wear, County Durham

I suspect these small brown toadstools (above and below), growing in a recently mown grassy woodland ride at the Woodland Trust's Low Burnhall reserve, could be brown mottlegills aka mower's mushroom Paneolina foenisecii, a common species in mown grass, but there are many small brown toadstools that resemble these and I'm unsure about that ID. The second image, below, shows how the cap becomes flattened and wavy-edged as it matures.

I think all of these toadstools in these last four images are honey fungus Armillaria mellea, a very variable species. Those in the first three pictures were probably growing on the surface roots of a dead larch, which it had most likely killed. The final image, with full expanded caps with wavy edges that have become concave as they've matured, shows a much older cluster on the stump of a dead alder. All at Durham Wildlife Trust's Low Barns Nature Reserve.

A violet-ant mutually beneficial symbiosis

 

Sweet violets Viola odorata produce two types of flower - the familiar scented kind that are amongst the first wild flowers to appear in spring and are pollinated by bumblebees, and a summer cleistogamous version that remains as a closed bud and self-pollinates without the intervention of insects. Insect pollination in early spring can be a chancy, hit-or-miss affair but, come what may, the cleistogamous flowers aways produce seeds in early autumn. This is a seed capsule of one such that I found in the garden, splitting open in three segments to release its seeds. Each seed has a small, white, oily attachment, an elaiosome, that ants find irresistible. They carry the seeds away so, if you grow violets in a garden, seedlings are likely to appear in unexpected places.

I’ve sown some freshly collected sweet violet seeds now, because they’ll need vernalisation, subjection to the freezing temperatures of winter, to break their dormancy.

 

Staphylinid beetle

 This tiny rove (staphylinid) beetle, about 5mm. long, found its way into the house, probably on washing dried on the washing line. But it might have flown in through an open window - the wings are tightly packaged under the wing cases, that look like a miniature back-pack, in the centre of the insect. These small staphylinids are weak fliers, generating enough lift to get airborne, but after that they’re at the mercy of wherever the wind and air currents take them.

Wood blewits

 

I remember adding a few wood blewits Lepista nuda to a compost heap at this spot in the garden many years ago. Their network of hyphae seems to have persisted in the soil, because this is autumn they’ve reappeared in exactly the same place, looking particularly lovely because they were sheltered from rain by some tall weeds. That purple/amethyst pigmentation seems to be washed away by heavy rainfall and as they age the cap colour fades, though it’s usually retained by the stalk and gills underneath.

Mrs. Peasgood's Nonsuch

 

This year the branches of the Peasgood’s Nonsuch apple are in danger of snapping under the weight of fruit. The variety was originally raised from a pip sown by the father of Emma Peasgood (nee Mamby), of Grantham in Lincolnshire in 1858. She and her husband John Peasgood settled in Stamford and planted it in their garden, and its apples won a prize in the local agricultural show in 1872. From there its fruit was sent to the Royal Horticultural Society in London, where it was awarded first prize, a First Class Certificate and named Peasgood’s Nonsuch.

It’s a dual-purpose apple, flavoursome and juicy for eating. It cooks down to a frothy puree in a matter of minutes. Perfect for baked apples and particularly good it you like apple puree with your porridge on autumn mornings. Individual apples can be very large but bruise easily and don’t keep well, so it doesn’t travel well and has never been commercially successful, but its a great apple to grow, producing a heavy crop every year.

There are far more apples than we can eat of give away, so butterflies and birds are going to be major beneficiaries of all the windfalls.

A poppy with political affiliations

 

Welsh poppy Meconopsis cambrica is simultaneously a native and an alien wild flower in Britain. As a component of the Arctic-alpine flora, which probably colonised soon after the glaciers retreated, the wild plant was mostly confined to rocky, wooded slopes in Wales, where it seemed reluctant to spread beyond its native habitat. But over the past five decades it has advanced rapidly through much of lowland England, Scotland and Wales, with gardeners acting as intermediaries. It pops up all over my garden, filling in any vacant spaces.

This is an effortless plant to cultivate for anyone aspiring to the cottage garden style of planting, and excellent for wildlife gardens because hoverflies and bumblebees find it irresistible. It’s a perennial, prolific self-sower with tiny seeds that readily establish in paving crevices and even on walls. In recent years it has become a familiar sight in woodlands near most villages in Weardale, integrating into the local flora.

A couple of miles up the valley from here, in Wolsingham, it seems to be in every garden, no doubt finding its way into local woodlands in mud carried on walkers’ footwear and on the feet, fur and feathers of mammals and birds.

The spread of Meconopsis cambrica illustrates how difficult it is to predict whether a plant will become invasive; here is a species that’s slow to spread in ancestral natural locations but which, with no apparent changes in its botanical constitution, has readily established in a variety of habitats throughout Britain.

In 2006 Plaid Cymru chose a stylised version of Welsh poppy as its new logo. A serendipitous botanical choice, perhaps, for a political party with an eye to making its influence felt throughout the union?

A harvest festival of ripe fruit and colourful butterflies

 Apples, pears and plums are ripening faster than we can eat them, so the bird table has been taken over by butterflies feeding on the fermenting juice of over-ripe fruit.

There were are least twenty red admirals and half a dozen comma butterflies getting legless on alcoholic fruit juice in this afternoon’s warm sunshine in the garden. When they are in such a lethargic, inebriated state butterflies are very easy to approach and if they do fly they settle again almost immediately.

Drinkers on the bird table ‘Last Chance’ saloon.

Comma butterflies on pears, a red admiral on a rotting apple, plus a bonus seven-spot ladybird that probably came to feed on the mould growing on the fruit.

Comma butterflies seem to have a particular liking for pear juice

A red admiral with its proboscis sunk deep in the hole left by a plum stalk, drinking sun-warmed plum juice

As sometimes happens, a fight broke out between drunkards when this red admiral and comma butterfly were competing for the same feeding cavity in a pear. Wing blows were exchanged and the comma prevailed. It seems even some butterflies can become aggressive if they over-indulge with alcohol, although most seem to just become semi-comatose, to the point where they’ll crawl onto your finger rather than fly away if you poke them.

Titanic struggle: Garden spider versus bumblebee

 

We witnessed a titanic battle between an unfortunate bumblebee and a female garden spider Araneus diadematus that had spun her web on the flight path to Michaelmas daisies in the abbey garden, Hexham, Northumberland last week. For a while it looked like the frantically buzzing bee might escape, but then the spider’s poisonous fangs found a weak spot and the struggle subsided.

Then the spider suspended its prize on a thicker thread and spun it round and round with its feet, wrapping it a silken shroud paid out from the spinnerets on the tip of her abdomen.

Oxford ragwort - rail traveller extraordinaire

 

Oxford ragwort Senecio squalidus, growing on the wall of Hexham Moot Hall. 

A native to the volcanic cinder slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily, introduced into Oxford University Botanic Garden in the 17th. century where its plumed, airborne seeds soon carried it over the garden wall. It didn’t get far until the railways arrived, when the ballast between the tracks proved to be a good substitute for Etna’s volcanic slopes.

 Its buoyant seeds, wafted along in the slipstream of passing trains, carried it along the route of the great Western Railway, then beyond along the tracks of other railway companies. Sometimes it even travelled inside trains: Geoffrey Grigson, in his An Englishman’s Flora, recounts the story of botanist George Claridge Druce watching a seed drift in through his train window in Oxford station, travel with him suspended in air then drift out again when the train reached Tilehurst in Berkshire. It’s now a common sight in towns throughout Britain, brightening up our walls and pavements.

Oxford ragwort’s population was boosted by the German Luftwaffe blitz on Britain’s cities during World War 2 when, along with rosebay willowherb, it colonised rubble-strewn bomb sites.

Autumn crocus Colchicum autumnale - beautiful but deadly

 

Beautiful but deadly poisonous autumn crocus Colchicum autumnale, cultivated in a woodland garden near the main car park in Hexham, Northumberland. Sometimes known as meadow saffron but not related to the Crocus sativus whose stigmas are the source of saffron spice. 

Used medicinally in the past in poultices for treating gout, but there is a fine line between a therapeutic and a fatal dose when used as a drug and there have been many fatalities. 

A native wild flower that is now rare and largely exterminated from pastures where it poisoned cattle. Flowers in autumn but the leaves don’t appear until spring, when they could be fatally mistaken for wild garlic (ramsons).

Alder leaf beetles

 Low Barns is Durham Wildlife Trust’s largest wetland reserve and the commonest trees there are alders, whose leaves are currently being consumed by a population explosion of these jewel-like, metallic-blue alder leaf beetles Agelastica alni.

Until quite recently, the alder leaf beetle was considered to be a rare species, in danger of extinction in Britain. Then, in 2004 it reappeared in north-west England and over the last twenty years it has become increasingly common in the north east. No one has really identified the reason for its success but it’s common in France, so perhaps it arrived with imported plants from continental Europe. The adult beetle and its larva partially defoliate alders but they recover every spring. The adult beetles fall with the alder foliage in autumn and survive winter in the leaf litter.

Twenty-plume moth and honeysuckle

 

Fragrant honeysuckle Lonicera periclymenum that grows in our garden hedge provides nectar for moths in summer ……

…. berries for birds in autumn …

…. and a breeding site for this exquisite little twenty-plume moth Alucita hexadactyla, which has wings composed of tiny plumes that resemble feathers. It lays its eggs in honeysuckle leaves and flower buds. Plume moths fly at dusk and are strongly attracted to lit windows; I found this one, with a wingspan of about a centimeter, settled on our living room wall.

The common name is a misnomer because each of the four wings has six plumes, so it should really be the twenty-four-plume moth, but the scientific name is accurate: hexadactyla means six fingers.