Posted in Abney Park latest changes. on September 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Walking round Abney this morning I found everyone was smiling at each other and saying how beautiful it was. The sun was coming through a slight haze, the virginia creeper was red, there was a smell of damp leafiness underfoot, it just felt like autumn. Link to photos of Abney September 2010.
Posted in Fungus Blogs, Fungus growth 2010 on September 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The wonderfully bright, bubbble-gum pink series of rounds are in two groups on the large compost mound in the center of Abney. These quite small, each one up to about 5 mms across but the colour makes them obvious at this pink stage. They will age to a darker purple/brown colour, then black, and be almost impossible to see if you don’t know they are there. Each structure is full of spores which will spill out if the rounds are squashed. Initially the spore colour is the same pink as the outside, but they too age to become darker.
Posted in Fungus Blogs, Fungus growth 2010 on September 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Russell found this bracket, and it had such a different growth habit to last time I saw it that Keir, (see Londonfungi in the links), had to put me in the right direction. It is s soft, large bracket which tends to go pink as it dries. The upper surface is finely hairy when seen with a hand lens, the lower surface has about 2 pores per mm. The edges are rounded edges which lead the downward pointing pores to be elongated on the curve.
Posted in Fungus Blogs, Fungus growth 2010 on September 28, 2010| 1 Comment »
This Pholiota has sat on the bottom of the page with information about Abney Park since the set up of the site. It was there as unidentified. Well, now it looks like it is Pholiota limonella. Pholiotas are a difficult group. I had not until now appreciated how difficult. With the help of Keir and the Londonfungi group it looks like it is this species. I will be sending it to Kew for confirmation, but for now I am happy to announce it as limonella and a new species for Abney.
It is yellow, it is exceptionally sticky, it has white scales on the cap that are sitting in the yellow, gelatinous layer so not actually attached to the cap, and they brown and blacken with age. It has white-ish scales covering the stem which deteriorate with age, browning and shriveling. It has a veil which attaches to the stem as the cap expands leaving a white-ish fringe on the rim. The deciding factor was the microscopic investigation and especially the spore size. It is growing on an old poplar trunk east of the chapel right on the top of one end.
Posted in Fungus Blogs, Fungus growth 2010 on September 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
A very handsome cap. It has a regular, upright habit, a rust brown cap with regular radial lines round the edge. it has a slightly fibrous surface with a slimy covering when it is wet. The stem, if you need to go further and can bend down with a mirror, will show through yellow if you scrape it and there is a white ring of stem right under the gills. It grows in association with birch trees.
Posted in Fungus Blogs, Fungus growth 2010 on September 27, 2010| 1 Comment »
This is a tiny thing, rarely reaching 5mms across, although they can get a bit bigger then that. They are tiny cup shaped growths that sit stalkless in wet rotting wood like tiny orange gems. If you have a hand lens or good eyesight the edge can be seen to have a black curved fringe of hairs, which looks just like an eyelash.
Posted in Fungus Blogs, Fungus growth 2010 on September 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »
This is growing on one log where the chances of it maturing are minimal. What the insects don’t get to (and they are having a really good go at obliterating the caps) will inevitably be removed by someone leaning on the log. The pitiful growth is not really apparent as this species at the moment, but it is growing from deep in the cracks of the wood. It begins as a stalk with a rounded head, and the stalks wind their way out of the cracks before they expand. The head has a sort of felty grey surface. The rim remains inrolled for a long time.
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And just to show what it should look like, Stoke Newington common grew this…
Posted in Fungus Blogs, Fungus growth 2010 on September 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The group that was growing in the hollow log has now been collected. It was pointed out to me that it is not always the most generally known species, so I have rephotographed it.
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The cap has become flattened and wavy at the edge. Once it was collected the texture of the white surface of the cap could be seen to be scurfy in the center and smoother towards the rim. There is a vague circular marking on the smoother area like a watermark. The underside shows cream coloured gills, crowded and can be decurrant (growing a little way down the stem) or, as here, adnate, growing laterally out from the stem. The stem is minutely bumpy. The caps are tufted, (joined at the base), and growing in wood, apparently especially hollow wood.
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Posted in Fungus Blogs, Fungus growth 2010 on September 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The common name comes from the legend of the King who, while on the run, was given shelter and given the chore of cooking, managed to burn the cakes. The old growth of this fungus look burnt and are rounded and could be cake sized. They grow on ash, which there is a lot of in Abney. The new growth it smaller and browner, then greying before blackening. The first of the new growth for the year seems to be coming along at the moment.
This fungus belongs to the Ascomycetes, which are an assortment of odd shapes. They grow their spores in asci, long thin structures only seen under a microscope. The spores in this species are ejected from the white spore production areas round the edge of the growth. The layers of growth look woody, like tree rings, when they are cut in half.
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Posted in Fungus Blogs, Fungus growth 2010 on September 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »
A cap with a clear grey surface apart from the middle which has tiny upright darker scales. Being a Pluteus there is no ring, and the gills start out pale and end up a mature pink. The gills are free, not attached directly to the stem. This particular cap is large for the species, usually they are a smaller, 2 to 5 cms across. It grows on decaying wood.
Link to photos of fungi and slimemold 2010.
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Abney Fungi 