Pluteus aurantiorugosus

This is a fairly rare little mushroom - it isn't in most of the field guides and doesn't even seem to be talked about much on the internet. 

Pluteus aurantiorugosus

The cap is both eye-catching and distinctive in terms of colour and texture.

Pluteus aurantiorugosus

Back-lit, Spidery Post

Fencepost of the Week #89

This post is falling apart and the spiders have claimed most of its peaks and valleys as their own.

Greasy Bracket

An irregular, soft, rounded bracket that smells mushroomy.

Aurantiporus fissilis - Greasy Bracket

It's pores are large enough to be easily visible with the naked eye and the upper surface has a distinctive, rough texture.

Aurantiporus fissilis - Greasy Bracket

It starts off white, but yellows with age. It grows on dead wood, but often (as here) emerges from the dead wood of a wound on a living tree.

Silk Canopy

This elegant stucture was on the underside of an oak leaf in Sussex in early October, and seems to be a woven out of silk, but I've not been able to find anything similar on the net or in my books.  

Looking closely at the photo, there is a small insect visible inside one of the arches - looks like a springtail. Did it build this?

Rotten Log Cornucopia

Just a neat little clustering of sulphur tuft and stump puffball fruiting bodies adorning a rotting log.

Hypholoma fasculare - Sulphur Tuft and Lycoperdon pyriforme - Stump Puffball. Both are common on well rotted timber.

Rooting Poisonpie

Monday Mushroom #86

 Hebeloma is a genus of fungi often called poisonpies - their caps have a texture remeniscent of pie crust, and they are mostly poisonous enough to cause unpleasant gastric upsets.

Rooting Poisonpie - Hebeloma radicosum

This one is the rooting poisonpie - it has a  long root attached to the base of the stem and smells of bitter almonds. It mostly grows up from subterranean patches of soil with very high ammonia content - middens of mammals, or sometimes corpses.

Rooting Poisonpie - Hebeloma radicosum

Hedgehog

Hydnum repandum - Hedgehog Mushroom

U.F.O.

Yet another UFO (Unidentified Fungal Object) seen buzzing the local woodlands. Possibly Mycena vitilis, but I'm really not sure.

UFO - Mycena vitilis?

Mycena vitilis?

No Nonsense

Fencepost of the Week #88

With its yellowing moss barnet and cyclopean knot, this is a no-nonsense fencepost if ever I saw one.

Winter Chanterelle

Cantharellus tubaeformis - winter chanterelle

Cantharellus tubaeformis - winter chanterelle

Cantharellus tubaeformis - winter chanterelle

Like many mushrooms, winter chanterelles change colour and texture as they dry out - the top photo shows their regular colouration of brown and yellow, while the caps in the lower two photos have dried out to a pale, greyish beige.

Here's some more photos from a foray in Argyll a couple of years back.

Death Cap

If you find one of these, don't eat it.

Amanita phalloides - Death cap

Amanita phalloides - Death cap

Amanita phalloides - Death cap

It's supposed to grow with oak or beech trees, but these two have set up in a spruce plantation.

Fairy Inkcap

Monday Mushroom #85

Coprinellus disseminatus - Fairy Inkcap

Coprinellus disseminatus - Fairy Inkcap

Coprinellus disseminatus - Fairy Inkcap

Coprinellus disseminatus - Fairy Inkcap

Slime Mould Eats Fungus

This is Physarum polycephalum - a slime mould that has become somewhat of a celebrity due to its performance in laboratories and mazes. 

Here it is in its natural habitat moving over and cleaning out a  small bracket fungus Stereum subtomentosum. Fungi are among its favourite foods.

After the Storm

There was a big storm here 28 years ago. All the old oak and ash trees are still alive, but leaning or growing up from a recumbent trunk. And they are interspersed with many tall, straight 28 year olds.

Dusky Post

Fencepost of the Week #87

In the woods at dusk.

Felt Saddle

Here's some Helvella macropus fruiting bodies slumming it with Tricholoma ustale in a beech wood, somewhere in Sussex.

Helvella macropus - Felt Saddle, with Tricholoma ustale - Burnt Knight.

Helvella macropus - Felt Saddle

Freckled Dapperling

Lepiota aspera - Freckled Dapperling

This was my first time finding one of the pointy-warted Lepiotas - From above it looked like Agaricus augustus, but it has a very fleecy, unevenly detatching ring - almost like Cortinarius.  I think this is Lepiota aspera although I couldn't really tell the difference between L. aspera and the closely related L. echinacea.

Comma

Polygonia c-album - Comma

Polygonia c-album - Comma

Thelephora penicillata

Monday Mushroom #84

 An unusual, tassely fungus found fighting for space with the moss on soggy forest floors.

Thelephora penicillata

Thelephora penicillata

Dragonfly Needs Sunshine Badly

Sympetrum striolatum

This fellow was basking on a fencepost in the weak, morning sunshine yesterday - didn't even have enough energy to fly off when I stuck a close-up lens in its face. I think it is Sympetrum striolatum.

Sympetrum striolatum

Sympetrum striolatum

Clustered Bonnet Cap

Common on dead oak wood, in tightly crowded tufts.

Mycena inclinata - Clustered Bonnet Cap

Mycena inclinata - Clustered Bonnet Cap

Beardy Post

Fencepost of the Week #86

There IS a fencepost somewhere under all that old man's beard lichen...

Crested Coral Fungus

Here's some photos of The Crested Coral Fungus - Clavulina coralloides. They are usually white, but discolour with age - also these pictures were taken at sunset and are making the subjects appear less white than they actually were - sorry!

Clavulina coralloides - Crested Coral Fungus

Clavulina coralloides - Crested Coral Fungus

Clavulina coralloides - Crested Coral Fungus

Clavulina coralloides - Crested Coral Fungus

Clavulina coralloides - Crested Coral Fungus

 Every Clavulina fruiting body I've seen in Sussex this year has had these black tips. Google image search and my photos from other places suggest that they are not usually present, and I've not yet found any reference to them in online descriptions... another little mystery.

Parasitic Bolette

Pseudoboletus parasiticus - Parasitic Bolette

This is an easily identified bolette as it exclusively grows on common earthball - Scleroderma citrinum - fruiting bodies. Its stem erupts from the underside of the earth ball, which often deflates as the bolette mushrooms outwards  and upwards.

Fibrecaps

Monday Mushroom #83

Inocybe Spp. - Fibrecap

The genus Inocybe is a family of fungi most of which have this very distinctive cap texture: coarse, radial fibres, giving the cap a silky, shiny appearance. Mostly brownish and small to medium sized, telling them apart can be tricky, though several of them have distincitve scents. I think this one is Inocybe rimosa, but I'm not sure.

Inocybe Spp. - Fibrecap - close up of the typical fibrecap cap texture.