Fungal Forays

A very rewarding autumn for fungal forays, so far.

Here are a few recent finds in Teesdale, Weardale and around Durham city

I think this is probably southern bracket Ganoderma australe, growing on an old beech tree in Stanhope dene. The black colouration is probably due to several days of heavy rain, soaking the surface. There were about a dozen of these on the trunk. They weaken the tree and the trunk usually snaps in high winds, about 10-15 feet above ground. The brackets are perennial and produce an annual crop of spores over a decade or more.

A beech stump, infested with old southern brackets

Trooping funnel Clitocybe geotropa, part of a fairy ring in Weardale that appears in this spot, under old hazel coppice, every autumn

Crimped gill Plicatura crispa, a Scottish species that's moving into northern counties of England. On dead horse chestnut branches, at Egglestone in Teesdale

Common puffballs Lycoperdon perlatum, in vast numbers, under Norway spruce in Hamsterley forest

Common puffballs Lycoperdon perlatum in Durham University Botanic Garden

Hairy curtain crust Stereum hirsutum in Stanhope dene, Weardale

Possibly a wood blewit Lepista nuda  (?) that has had some of the colour washed out of it by rain? Low Barns Nature reserve, Durham

Turkey tail Trametes versicolor in Durham University Botanic Garden

Honey fungus Armillaria mellea on an ash tree at Wolsingham in Weardale

Wood blewit Lepista nuda in Hamsterley forest, Durham

Sulphur tuft Hypholoma fasciculare Weardale

Clouded agaric Clitocybe nebularis in Durham University Botanic Garden, where it forms spectacular fairy rings

Unidentified, Durham University Botanic Garden

Angel bonnets Mycena archangelica on a fallen beech branch, Durham University Botanic Garden

Candle snuff Xylaria hypoxylon, Egglesone, Teesdale

Bitter bracket Postia styptica (?), Durham University Botanic Garden

Collared earthstar Geastrum triplex, under an old ash tree in Hollingside lane, Durham city

Collared earthstars discharging spores after being hit by raindrops

Upright coral Ramaria stricta (or maybe the less common R. abietina?) under Korean fir Abies koreana, in Durham University Botanic Garden

Shaggy scalycap Pholiota squarrosa on a Californian redwood in the arboretum of Durham University Botanic Garden

A magnificent veteran beech tree

There are some fine stands of native trees scattered throughout Hamsterley Forest's commercial conifer plantations here in country Durham. None is more impressive than this venerable beech tree, growing next to an old dry stone wall that must have been part of the field system before the forest was planted. 

This is one of the largest and most impressive beeches that I've encountered and it probably benefits from the shelter of the surrounding conifers, although the top of its crown is taller than they are. But it's real glory lies in its magnificent convoluted bole - folded, fissured and branching from low down in a way that suggests that it must have been pollarded or lost its leading shoot earlier in its life. 

Now all those folds and cavities make it an excellent wildlife habitat. Over the last decade or so it has acquired a fine fungal flora, in the form of ......

....... these massive brackets of Ganoderma australe, commonly known as the southern bracket. The fungus is undoubtedly killing the tree very slowly. The crown is still as leafy as I remember it when I first saw it, almost 40 years ago. I would not be in the least surprised it it survives for several more decades.

Ganoderma is a perennial bracket fungus, producing a new hymenial layer (the spore producing tissue) annually over a decade or more. Here you can see this year's fresh white hymenium on the underside of the brackets.

The tan-coloured stain on the trunk is a coating of spores, that are released in billions.

The 'shelf' formed by the upper surface of the old brackets has become carpeted with mosses ......

..... while the upper surfaces of those immediately below becomes covered with a thick layer of spores, like a coating of cocoa powder. The dark area under this bracket is one of several temporary pools formed when rainwater trickles down the trunk and collects in folds and rot-holes. Temporary pools like this are known as phytotelmata and are home to vast numbers of tiny protists and animals. When I took a sample from this one and looked at it under the microscope it was seething with oligochaete worms and tardigrades, feeding on the single-celled protists which in turn were feeding on the soup of fungal spores in the water.