Ramariopsis or Calocera?

[SheffieldLass]

Just been going through photos of ones I never got round to id at the time.
Found Nov 1st. I can't even remember if this was growing out of wood / roots or soil. It was tucked in at a cliff base, top of an unimproved grassy sunny slope where there are trees and other vegetation growing out of crevices (birch, oak, yew, heather, gorse, broom, ivy, honeysuckle, ferns etc). I don't remember it shrinking to almost nothing as it dried, which I've had with Calocera viscosa, but maybe it did and that was why I didn't notice it to id it when I 'd got home ...



And there was another fairly similar but I'm not convinced it is the same thing though. This was out in open grassland, down the slope a bit.


Melanie

[diggleken]

Hi Melanie - certainly first two look like calocera viscosa - they are often deeply 'rooted' growing through moss from the woody substrate according to Jordan - the last one is a little different in appearance, but they do develop in my experience so it could well be the same.
But were there conifers/pine stumps or old fence posts (often pine) about for them to grow from?
Ken

[NickCantle]

I really can't envisage the last turning out to be Calocera viscosa unless it's very atypical (which obviously can happen). It looks much more blunt ended whereas the Calocera usually have a pointed and tapered tip to each branch.

[SheffieldLass]

No fence posts, and the only possible conifers are yew. They are certainly nearby. I'll have a look when I'm next up there, as I know the exact spot, to see whether there is yew at that point under the cliffs, or what exactly is there. The second was in a much more open position, but there could be buried wood there from fallen branches from the cliff trees. Though it looks as if Calocera viscosa will also grow on ivy and decayed deciduous wood too.

I don't remember fighting to get the sample (I only use a blunt table knife not a penknife), if I remember rightly it came away very easily, and it was a slightly precarious position for me too, very steep and slippy there ... I do remember when I tried to get a bit of Calocera viscosa off a conifer stump where the ground was level, it was hard work ...

Melanie

[SheffieldLass]

I went back and checked today. Both would have been growing either from soil or from leaf-litter or buried wood. No stumps there or roots .. and the nearest trees are oak, but there are two small yews way up the cliff face and there is plenty of wood debris from the oaks and yews on the ground. The dark bit behind in the photo, which it was growing from under is very weathered gritstone, not wood. And it is so steep there, almost rock scrambling terrain that I'm sure they were easily removed, with one hand, as I'd have been hanging on with the other hand, otherwise I'd have been sliding down the slope.

Today there were quite a number of very blackened fungi with caps (not corals) in the grass, don't know when they appeared, but must have been this winter as I checked there regularly until December. Couldn't tell if they had been growing in the grass as they all seemed to be loose, or had been blown off the cliffs, or had actually been growing on the trees on the cliffs and recently fallen off. They only seemed to be in the area immediately under the cliffs. I'm hoping there might be a spore or two that might at least point me in the direction of a family .. though that might be over-optimistic! And I'm not going to take up rock-climbing next year to see if they are growing on the cliff ledges.

Melanie