Herbivore dung - Have a dung day!

[CapAndBracket]

I'm thinking (from phillips) this is Panaeolus popilionaceus var parvisporus, note on dung.






The spores are the right shape, size colour, but in the overlap range with P.acuminatus, which
looks very similar in phillips but not jordan.



Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Now my finds are often open to question so here goes, this one caught my eye this morning as looking a bit different somehow.

Glad i took it home as the spores seem to tell a tale.


At 20+ X15, there seems to be one match on the dutch coprinus site,
Coprinus sterquilinus, and how i wish i had found it sooner as what a great image they are,
apparently closely related to lawyers wig but on dung and the spore size.

Now the question is it worth sending of, the remains aren't to special , i use the envelopes from
junk mail (just throw contents without reading and clean envelopes to avoid contamination) and
it's somewhat stuck to the inner surfaces, but would dry quite nicely, i could send to any site
experts if they were interested and wished to check measurements.


Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Psilocybe coprophila. The rain seems to have woken fungi up. (horray).



Also these, not on dung but in a hoof print.







Maybe this time i have found Delicatula integrella, will try to get back later with
microscopy.

Cheers J.P.

[FungiJohn]

This thread just gets better and better. Excellent work JP

John

[CapAndBracket]

It's mostly thank's to you and the hairy cow FJ.


X1000

The Psilocybe coprophila spores came out an absolute treat.

The white fungi is hands up time, i'm wrong and don't know what it is, maybe
the fountain of knowledge will have some clues, meanwhile i'm going to
peruse Ellis + Ellis.

Cheers J.P.

[mykonik]

Originally Posted by CapAndBracket

Psilocybe coprophila. The rain seems to have woken fungi up. (horray).



Also these, not on dung but in a hoof print.







Maybe this time i have found Delicatula integrella, will try to get back later with
microscopy.

Cheers J.P.

Would'nt have 'proper gills' if it was Delicatula integrella JP !

They would just be 'folds' on the underside of the cap. AND you would only find it in wet shady places, usually with liverworts, and often (almost always ?) under Alders in swampy areas or by streams !

The fungus in your photograph is Marasmiellus vaillantii by the look of it - arising from dead stems of various grass species, it is common at this time of year.

Nick

[CapAndBracket]

Excellent, when i did the close ups at home and looked at the gills i knew i
wasn't sure (hence the follow up post), then i thought the excuse was (not
in my books) but low and behold it is in Phillips.

Now let me see, if i know 5% of fungi reasonably well and i've been doing this
for several years then....... (i better go and get my calculator for this).

Cheers J.P.

The 5% is probably an overestimate.

[CapAndBracket]

Isn't this subject just made from endless suprises.



Best gess would be some kind of Coprinus.sp, but could be way of the mark
considering the scaly looking finds FJ had earlier in the week.

Taking things home often results in failure to mature (obviously due to
severing hyphal mat connections) so i have left it in the wild, now to hope
the slugs don't pass to close in the night, ideal would be to find the dung
lump festooned with fruit bodies at various stages in the morning, we
live in hope.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

The dung sample i collected at Castle bottom is progressing, this shows the
advantage of collecting from different areas.


X20

Our old friend Ascobolus furfuraceus, greenish cup loaded with dark
(protruding) asci, these are definately sensitive to air pressure (wind
gusts) for disspersal, my sash window is part open and soon after this
photo a draught resulted in more than half the asci firing.


X20

Another area of the dung, it looks like a Saccobolus.sp (arrowed in photo), a tiny Coprinus !)
top centre and the white cups i'm not sure about, the hairs may be from them or a
hyphomycete creeping over everything.


Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

X100

The Saccobolus at X100 demonstrating the ripe asci protruding from the fruit
body. (note if i turned the scope light up, the camera closed down, hence
yelow out come, sometimes a bit of top lighting would be useful).


X400

This is one species that can be viewed nicely at X400, image is of asci with unripe spores
(hyaline, clear), these would not be proturding and represent what much of the fruit body
consists of.


X400

Image of the asci with ripe spores now purple and were protruding in original image.


X1000

The ripe spores at X1000, not clear in the image (but visible down the scope) are fine lines
randomly crossing the surface. This is Saccobolus glaber (Ellis + Ellis).

I'm going to leave the white cups (previous message) until tommorow to see how they
develop.

Cheers J.P.

[cybershot]

Originally Posted by CapAndBracket

Isn't this subject just made from endless suprises.



Best gess would be some kind of Coprinus.sp, but could be way of the mark
considering the scaly looking finds FJ had earlier in the week.

Taking things home often results in failure to mature (obviously due to
severing hyphal mat connections) so i have left it in the wild, now to hope
the slugs don't pass to close in the night, ideal would be to find the dung
lump festooned with fruit bodies at various stages in the morning, we
live in hope.

Cheers J.P.

Hoping I get to see this and your other recent treasures tomorrow at Greenham JP; see you by the control tower at 10.00 buddy

David

[cybershot]

A significant Red Data List find on a foray of Greenham Common with JP and members of 'Shrooms Fungus Group last Sunday, after following up a previous lead from JP.


Coprinus sterquilinus

[CapAndBracket]

Through grass is a well weathered cowpat which may not be significant.



An Entoloma.sp but which one



The best match seems to be Entoloma griseocyaneum but a google of these produced
some excellet matches and some suspicious missmatches!
Have set cap for spore print.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

The mysteries continue, these are around 1mm for the largest and have appeared on a petri dish, the best i can gess at the moment is a small coprinus.sp from dung (finger crossed they finnish fruiting now), the tiny orange beads may be myxomycete sclerotia comming back to life but i don't know (isn't science fun).

The substrate is an experiment seeing if anything would grow on paper soaked in the water used for cooking spaghetti (should contain plenty of nutrients), and had been made some time ago so sometimes it's a question of leaving things alone and see what happens.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

They have kept growing so a small success

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

This was collected last Wednesday at Barley heath, on pony buns each black fruit body < 1mm, initially very difficult to get anything useful under the scope as immature.


X1000

Today they are maturing, the spores intially (centre of image) look like worms with many segments along their length.


X1000

Another image showing basically how they are arranged 8 per asci.


X1000

As they mature the centre section of each spore becomes a black lump while the sections either
side become hyaline sticky appendages to the spore, this presumably is so on ejection from
the asci the spores will hopefully stick to some plant ready to be eaten by the ponies.

From Ellis + Ellis, this species is Cercophora coprophila, the image of the ripe spore isn't as good
as i would like so a selection of fruit bodies are now moistened upside down on a glass slide in
the hope some will eject and stick there without other material and then see if i can get them
to take a stain to show the features clearly

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Partial success.


X1000

Using congo red i find does reveal the sticky appendage each side of the
the central cellular structure which will become the spore, but does not
show the segments within the central structure.


X1000

Whereas using cotton blue does show up the segments of the central structure but hardly shows
the sticky appendages, (one is just about visible top right as a clear line).


X1000

Partially formed spores, it looks as though the cells of the centre section gradually aggregate
together to form the spore.


X1000

Near completion, it looks like the markings on the spore are the former cellular divisions which
have aggregated into one large cell (the spore), need better microscopy and stain.


Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Still trying.


X1000

I think this time really caught the sticky appendages (look like tails) and
really not what we expect fungal spores to look like!


X1000

Mature spore, the transformation is quite remarkable.

Cheers J.P.

[CapAndBracket]

Yesterday noticed a fungi emerging on dung sample.



Thought oh maybe a concybe in captivity, then it got forgoten until this
evening when to my surprise what a size.



Now thinking maybe Panaeolus semiovatus!



cheers J.P.

[cybershot]

Needs a lot more nutrient, natural light etc., to get to the 7cm cap size of the others found in the wild at Castle Bottom but what a perfect little specimen to have cultured at home on that dung you collected. Well done mate!

David

[CapAndBracket]

Thank's for that, i put maybe next the ID just in case it's more interesting,
hopefully i will have some time to get it under the scope on Friday.
The others from castle bottom (started as white discs, now pink cusions)
are still a mystery to me, will they ripen more and becomes obvious ?

This is one of those pastimes that sometimes Pass.............time and still
confused, but then there are the great moments like the recent posts, can't
understand why more havn't joined in

Cheers J.P.

[Nettle Runner]

JP, I suspect that it is because you are in a league of your own.

That's not to say that we don't follow, with great interest, your reports and findings.

Les