Slippery and Slimey

The current spell of mild wet weather has provided perfect conditions for this fine specimen of Suillus bovinus, a close relative of slippery Jack S. luteus, that we found around the roots of some Scots pines beside the South Tynedale Railway at Alston this morning.

The whole surface of the cap in this species is covered in a slippery mucilage. As the toadstool ages it gradually turns darker brown, but this specimen is the prime of life. The books say it's edible but I'm not tempted.....

 

Suillus is a polypore, releasing its spores down the narrow tubes that line the underside of the cap.
Slippery Jack is indeed slippery, but not in the same league as the organism that was creeping through the grass on the other side of the footpath.

This is the slime mould called Mucilago crustacea. Slime moulds, or myxomycetes, are amazing organisms and if they didn't exist science fiction writers would surely have to invent them. They begin life as individual microscopic amoebae that hatch from powdery spores that are released from the wrinkled surface you can see here. The amoebae aggregate and fuse together to form a creeping, translucent plasmodium, that moves across the surface of wet soil, grass, wood and rocks digesting bacteria and dead material that lies in its path.

If you look closely at the image above you can see the plasmodium - the translucent part, with thickenings that look like veins - stuck to the dead grass in the foreground and hanging in a blob slightly above and to the left.

This plasmodium is almost fully fed and its wandering days are over. The leading edge, seen here is already wrinkling, is beginning to produce vast numbers of spores on the surface of those convolutions and these will dry and blow away in the wind or be washed away by rain..... to germinate again and release swarms of amoebae

 You can find some very fine movies of the creeping plasmodial stage here and here

Remembrance

Poppy seeds need light to germinate, so every time the soil is cultivated buried seeds that are brought to the surface germinate and produce a blaze of scarlet flowers. Every year for the last 25 years, since we moved into our house, unsown corn poppies have flowered in the vegetable garden. This year's crop has now set seed, leaving these elegant little pepperpot-like seed capules - delightful objects of natural sculpture - that are the last reminder of the vivid splashes of flowers that graced the potato patch back in July. They've shaken their seeds out of the pores around the rim and added to the seemingly inexhausible seed bank in the soil.

Earlier this week I came across a remarkable account of the mass- flowering of poppies, in an obscure journal called the Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, published by the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in 1917. The article is called The Flora of the Somme Battlefield, written by someone who simply signed themselves with the initials A.W.H. It's an account of a visit to the battlefield in the summer that followed the great battle of summer and autumn 1916. It must surely be one of the most poignant botanical accounts ever written, and I can do no better than to quote the author's own words.

Image: The effect of artillery bombardment - Passchendaele village, before and after the battle of 1917. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Passchendaele

"Villages, roads, open country, and woodland have been destroyed and ploughed up again and again by shells, with the result that hardly a level spot can be found. The surface of the ground is everywhere more-or-less pitted with shell-holes of varying size and depth, and can best be imitated by arranging innumerable cups and basins as closely together as possible so that their rims shall reach a general level. It is only on the rims of the shell holes that walking is possible".

"Looking over the devastated country from the Bapaume Road one saw only a vast expanse of weeds of cultivation which so completely covered the ground and dominated the landscape that all appeared to be a level surface. In July poppies predominated, and the sheet of colour as far as the eye could see was superb; a blaze of scarlet unbroken by tree or hedgerow".

"Charlock occurred in broad patches ....... though masked by the taller poppies. Numerous small patches were, however, conspicuous and these usually marked the more recently dug graves of men buried where they had fallen. No more moving sight can be imagined than this great expanse of open country gorgeous in its display of colour, dotted over with half-hidden white crosses of the dead. In no British cemetery, large or small, however beautiful of impressive it may be, can the same sentiments be evoked or feelings so deeply stirred. Nowhere, I imagine, can the magnitude of the struggle be better appreciated than in this peaceful, poppy-covered battlefield hallowed by its many scattered crossses."

A.W.H (1917) The Flora of the Somme Battlefield. Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, Royal Botanic Garden , Kew Nos. 9 & 10, 1917, pp. 297-300.

The Knuckle Bones of Allen Banks

In today's Guardian Country Diary there's an account of a visit to Allen Banks - the spectacular wooded gorge that flanks the River Allen in Northumberland, before its confluence with the River Tyne, west of Hexham. It was only our second visit there and I've been kicking myself ever since for not visiting more often - especially at this time of year, when it's a terrific place for finding fungi. This magnificent specimen of what I think is common puffball Lycoperdon perlatum was growing amongst last year's decaying beech leaves............



..... while this, which I think is sulphur-tuft Hypholoma fasciculare was sprouting from rotting beech roots.

 

Perhaps the most curious feature, though, was a strange artifact that can be found on a high bluff at the end of the path that climbs up the west side of the valley, before the steep descent down towards the river, in the green patch of  moss visible in the left foreground in the photo above. At this point the view ahead and far below, of the densely wooded gorge that leads upstream to Plankey Mill, is truely stunning but .....

.... if you can take you eyes off the view for a moment and happen to glance down at your feet you soon realise you are standing on something rather strange......... 

.......... a platform made of sheep knuckle bones, hammered into the path and worn smooth by passing feet. Does anyone out there know more about this weird and slightly macabre feature of this woodland walk?