Survey 13 – Sumer is icumen in

Earthstar – Geastrum

Another visit last Wednesday . It turned out to be a lovely day, as befits mid-June. We looked at Oxhay Pasture then circled back via Rough Wood. not a huge amount in the fungus line, but a few nice finds, including another new one for the survey records in the form of an Earthstar.

We also found a few galls and Steve took some lichens to ID as he won’t have access to his microscope for a little while.

John gave me my homework this time, and once again, I got stuck in with my microscope, and looked at a small orange cup growing on sheep dung. He gave me lots of info and clues, but I was pleased that I was able to identify it correctly as Cheilymenia granulata – even though they had changed the name since to publication of the book I used to try and throw me off the scent (pun intended)

Cheilymenia granulata Asci, Spores and Paraphyses

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With Spring moving into early summer, there were lots of other wildlife distractions. In my pre-survey bird walk, there were 2 pairs of Whinchat around and we also saw damselflies (Large Red) an Orchid, and a Small Copper was also on the wing. Brian also spotted a beetle that looked like an elongated Ladybird, and Rob supplied not only an ID but a great photo.

Clytra quadripunctata. Photoand ID by Rob Foster

We decided that although our main expertise and focus as a group is fungi – we include lichens as symbiotic fungi, and slime moulds because we like them – we would start a new page for other stuff as it would be a shame not to keep a record, however informal of the special things we see on the Estate.

As we left, we thought we head cause for celebration as we saw this notice

but subsequently, Network Rail denied all knowledge of it, and worryingly, this article appeared recently in the Sheffield Star

We will be visiting again on 2nd July, meeting at Longshaw Cafe at 10:30. Please join us if you can.

The Sheffield Museum Fungi Collection and the Longshaw Fungi Survey

Hi Claire,

Your blog on Kew lichens is fascinating

http://clairemilesblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/a-survey-of-british-lichens-at-the-natural-history-museum/

I collected some specimens from Hardwick in Derbyshire on Wednesday, as I want to brush up on lichens for our Fungi (and Lichen) Survey of the Longshaw Estate. I’ve recently examined the fungi collection held by Sheffield Museum, catalogued them, and put a few disconnected caps and stems together. Mostly they’re from the 1960’s, with many from Longshaw. I went to my first fungus foray there in 1969, so it was quite moving to see some of the preserved specimens with labels written by the leader at that time, Terry Bottomley, as well as some of the water colour paintings he made. The specimens are mostly freeze-dried I think, and some are spectacular, such as the Glistening Inkcaps. These would have turned to ink overnight, but have been perfectly preseved for half a century. I examined a small bit of Orange Peel Fungus, which was almost perfect microscopically, with oil drops in the spores and other structures such as asci and paraphyses more or less intact. But the spores didn’t germinate!

There are 82 collections of freeze-dried or air-dried fungi at Sheffield Museum, representing about 65 species, 40 from named sites, 57 with a museum reference number. The reference numbers may allow us to get more data on the specimens. A few labels were with the wrong specimen, and a few stalks and caps had been mixed up. Mostly the identifications looked OK. After half a century the collection was quite impressive.

We’re keeping a herbarium of fungi (and lichens now) from the Longshaw Estate. These are air-dried, placed in sealed plastic packets and then kept in a freezer for several months. After that they should, according to the Museum curator, be OK for a good while.

Good luck with your project and with the jobs threat at Kew. I’ve signed the petition.

Here are some pictures of the Sheffield Museum Fungi Collection:

Part of the collection.

One label describes the preservation process.

 

 

 

Glistening Inkcaps – Coprinellus micaceus, miraculously preserved – normally they would deliquesce to a pool of black Ink after a few hours when collected.

The fragile PurpleBrittlestem – Russula atropurpurea still beautifully coloured after 50 years or so.

The Yellow Swamp Brittlegill, still brilliant yellow, from 1966.

One of the many collections from the Longshaw Estate is the Herald of Winter, Hygrophorus hypothejus. Longshaw is a special place for Sheffield as it was bought by public subscriptions, mostly by Sheffield folk, in the late 1920’s and mid 1930’s, to save it from urban development. It has the best fungi of the Sheffield area. At the moment some of the most unspoiled parts are threatened by major rail developments along the Sheffield-Manchester line. We’ve been collecting fungi and other natural history records there since December, when we first heard of the plans.

The Orange Peel Fungus, now renamed as Aleuria aurantia. Like lichens, many of the names from the specimens (1964-70) have been changed. The specimen has faded to buff from its original brilliant orange, so confirmation by microscopy would be useful.

The curator allowed me to take a small fragment of the faded Orange Peel Fungus. Although the orange pigment had faded, the microscopy was impressive – even showing the oil-drops in the spores.

The reticulated ornamentation and size confirms the specimen as Aleuria aurantia (formally Peziza aurantia).

Best regards,

Steve Clements, Longshaw Fungi Recorder

A tour of Sheffield Plantation, and a look at Granby Bog

Wednesday June 4th was our 12th fungal survey of the Longshaw Estate since last December. This time the warning of severe weather put off most visitors to Longshaw – walks were abandoned – but it wasn’t such a bad day at all.  Longshaw’s Chris Millner took time out to show us around Sheffield Plantation, where over the next 10 years a lot of thinning of over-planted trees will take place. Eventually the old woodland pasture landscape will be restored, which is good news for fungi. The woods are mixed, with old veteran Oaks, Birch and Alder crowded out with Larch and Pine. Some of the conifers will stay, which is also good news for fungi. There’s plenty of decaying wood so we’ll be finding fungi all year round, just like in Rough Wood. One of the first fungi we found was a typical Spring species, Cudoniella tenuispora (very similar to C. grandis but reliably separated by the spore size range) growing on a log.

This Spring Pin is an Asco, or Spore-shooter, related to cup fungi. This is our first record for Longshaw, but we have two records for C. grandis, and one for Oak Pin, C. acicularis. We didn’t do much recording as we were listening to Chris Millner, who was telling us that about 2000 tons of wood would have to be removed eventually. However, we spotted plenty of Stagshorns, slime fungi, some Pinkgills and some crusts. Most people avoid crust fungi as they are pretty featureless and need a very good microscope to identify them. One was Botryobasidium subcoronatum, a powdery white crust which looks amazing at high magnification. This is a stacked image which shows that every cross-wall in the hyphae has a clamp connection:

This tiny bit of the crust was stained with Congo Red dye and then washed with water. I took about 3 images at different focus, and then used some free software to stack them. This species has been found several times before at Longshaw, and has very reliable identification by the British Mycological Association. After a bacon butty and pot of tea at the cafe, we had a stroll down to Granby Pond, where Chris K spotted just about everything, including this beautiful little mushroom which is just a few millimetres across. It’s Orange Mosscap – Rickenella fibula:

Just by it were some LBMs. Little Brown Mushrooms are sometimes very difficult, one had purple-pink-brown spores (colour depended on how you looked at them). I posted this on Wild About Britain but up until now no-one has put a name to it. However, the Turf Mottlegill – Panaeolus fimicola (ater) was easier to identify from its smooth brown spores:

Another beautiful little toadstool close by was a Pleated Inkcap – Parasola leiocephala. It’s impossible to identify species of Parasola without microscopy, but you can use a mirror to name them as Pleated Inkcaps as they are pretty distinctive with their almost transparent and pleated caps:

In the Sphagnum bog by the pond were plenty of Bells (Galerina) but these are a difficult group, so are often avoided. It looked as though there were at least two kinds, one I identified with reasonable confidence as Galerina paludosa, the Bog Bell. With them were Sphagnum Greylings – Tephrocybe palustris, which doesn’t appear to have been recorded at Longshaw before:

This needed a bit of microscopy and was checked against descriptions in several books. The white spore print was one feature used to get the ID:

The most spectacular find of the day was again by Chris K – a small troop of brilliant orange-red Vermillion Waxcaps – Hygrocybe miniata, in the Sphagnum bog. Look at Chris’s post below for that one>

Wonderfully Wet Wednesday!

Steve and I braved the elements at Longshaw on Wednesday and were glad we did. Firstly we got a great guided tour of Sheffield Plantationby Ranger Chris Milner and secondly we saw some great fungi and slime moulds. In the plantation there were lots of Calocera Sp. which we thought might be a useful focus for our next visit to that part of the Estate, and a post-prandial visit to the boggy area above Granby Woods, where my eye was in and we found quite a good selection of small mushrooms for Steve to take away and work his magic on. I even got out my microscope yesterday and had a bit of a look at some spores myself. Not the greatest of days for photography, but plenty of record shots were taken and I got to try out a new macro lens which fits onto my iPhone.

Ceratiomyxa fructiculosa – a Slime Mould

Hygrocybe sp (possibly miniata)