WAB Clumber foray 2008 Fungi ID's

[CloudedYellow]

I have had a look at the earth-tongues found on Saturday by the WAB crew at Clumber and have been able to make a reasonably firm id. My pics were not very good so hopefully one of the other Clumberers will post a decent image and add it to this thread.

The earth-tongues were in light sandy soil amongst grass and moss at the side of a small road.

I collected a couple but lack any experience with earth-tongues so hopefully the following won't be gibberish!

I could not see any hairs with a hand-lens which means it is a Geoglossum sp.

I left them sandwiched between two slides overnight hoping for some mature spores but could only find one the following day (thankfully the spores are large so it did not take me *too* long to find just this one on a slide!).



This spore is 54u x 5.8u and has 7 septa. The spores for Trichoglossum and Microglossum are different so at least I knew I was on the right track with Geoglossum.

I then squashed a sample to look at the paraphyses and in particular their tips. They are the segmented finger-like structures seen below. They were all virtually straight and ending in slightly swollen club-shaped tips.



Other spores in the squash ranged from ~50 to ~65u in length but I could not be certain that any of those were mature - they may have been released from an ascus when I squashed my sample.

I worked through two different keys and both came up with Geoglossum cookeianum for which there happens to be one record in the FRDBI database for Notts.

So unless there are any dissenters I propose to call the earth-tongues we found Geoglossum cookeianum!

[FungiJohn]

Hope this helps Richard. I'll let others upload to the Gallery.



Thanks for the key work.

John

[wildlifesnapper]

Hi
Richard,

I took a couple home to "scope" and I too got to G. cookeianum.

Great weekend , and I hope everyone got home safely.

Here's to next year

neil

[CloudedYellow]

Originally Posted by wildlifesnapper

Hi
Richard,

I took a couple home to "scope" and I too got to G. cookeianum.

Great weekend , and I hope everyone got home safely.

Here's to next year

neil

Thanks Neil

and seconded!

Richard

[CloudedYellow]

Originally Posted by FungiJohn

Hope this helps Richard. I'll let others upload to the Gallery.

Thanks for the key work.

John

Just the job - I knew yours would be better than mine

Richard

[NickCantle]

Brilliant work lads, and how on earth did you find just one spore Richard?!

That's a good species to nail- I 'think' I might have found some in my neck of the woods just two weeks ago- exactly the same habitat. Just got to be 'scoped.

Nick

[CloudedYellow]

Originally Posted by NickCantle

Brilliant work lads, and how on earth did you find just one spore Richard?!

Nick

Hi Nick,

Fortunately it was a big enough to see under the x100. I reckon most of the spores I saw on the squashed sample were mature also so in the end it didn't really matter anyway!

Richard

[BamBam]

Hello Everyone

Glad to hear you all got back safely.It was lovely to meet you and finally put names to faces.Hopefully there will be more of you next year, get Base Camp booked...early!

I went into work at Clumber this morning ( It's a hard job but somebody's gotta do it!) and one or two that we saw at the weekend were on my mind so I took them to my friend Ken who is also County recorder for Lincs (Which does help!) and between us and the microscope we concluded the following:

The Earth tongue on examination had no hairs so a spore test then confirmed Geoglossum cookeanum which i see has also been confirmed by Richard too.

The Amanita is unfortunately just citrina var alba and not virosa (at both locations).

I was concerned re the Otidea and a spore test reveals the Tan Ear Otidea alutacea. I'm sorry Pauline..I can hear the screams down here!

The odd one on Lime Tree as we were walking back at the end we beleive is Tricholoma saponaceum.Faint smell of soap.rooting stem,pinkish at tapering base.I need to revisit later in week for hopefully a larger specimen.

The butter cap with the very very dark all over cap which I thought might be Collybia butyracea var asema is just plain old Collybia butyracea as the stem wasn't dark enough for the former.

I thought it was best I pass it on to you especially as I think there might be a few photos going on....speaking of which..where are they????????

Best Wishes

Vicky.

[NickCantle]

Being edited as we speak Vicky- well, between glances at FOS Vol. 3 Many thanks for that by the way, it'll help me a massive amount

Thanks once again for passing on your wisdom

Nick

[FungiJohn]

It's no good! We shall just have to go back there and do better

A shame about the destroying angel too as it is present in that compartment. Dryer conditions would have helped more in the field for initial ID.

Photo's Someone must have taken their camera, surely

John