Bog Beacon

[Lancashire Lad]

Found some nice patches of Bog Beacon - Mitrula paladosa growing on both sides of a boggy woodland path.

It was very noticable that all those on one side of the path were very bright orange, whilst all those on the other side of the path were much paler.

I wouldn't have thought that the conditions from one side of a path to the other would cause such a marked difference, and am pretty sure it won't have anything to do with sunlight or shade.

Anyone suggest a logical reason?



Regards
Mike.

[diggleken]

Hi Mike, nice find - no REAL idea, but you know what substrate / nutrients do to the colour of some flowers, so possibly the same effect?
Ken

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by diggleken

Hi Mike, nice find - no REAL idea, but you know what substrate / nutrients do to the colour of some flowers, so possibly the same effect?
Ken

Hi Ken,

Yes, I'd thought of the possibility, but on the face of things there was no difference in the two sides of the track. (Just a rough tractor route between the trees, no hardcore or man made finish etc.).

I suppose there could be some underlying difference to the substrate, but considering the close proximity, (only maybe 2 metres across), it just seemed decidedly odd looking at the very obvious colour difference in the same fungus on each side of the track.

Regards
Mike.

[NickCantle]

I would put it down to the usual variation of species to be honest.

(Meaning; There probably is some intricate detail that decides the hue of it, but I don't know it)

[Ditiola]

Hi Mike Perhaps there are diferent forms, I found Mitrula at two sites at the weekend, at on site in Yorkshire all the heads were round in shape and at the other site in Derbyshire all the heads were elongated.

Peter

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by Ditiola

Hi Mike Perhaps there are diferent forms, I found Mitrula at two sites at the weekend, at on site in Yorkshire all the heads were round in shape and at the other site in Derbyshire all the heads were elongated.

Peter

Hi Peter, and welcome to WAB,

You may well be right - It seems that anything and everything is possible in the world of fungi.

Regards
Mike.

[NickCantle]

Originally Posted by Ditiola

Hi Mike Perhaps there are diferent forms, I found Mitrula at two sites at the weekend, at on site in Yorkshire all the heads were round in shape and at the other site in Derbyshire all the heads were elongated.

Peter

Definitely not different stages of development? I'm not aware of differing forms of this species. As Mike says, nothing would surprise

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by Ditiola

Hi Mike Perhaps there are diferent forms, I found Mitrula at two sites at the weekend, at on site in Yorkshire all the heads were round in shape and at the other site in Derbyshire all the heads were elongated.

Peter

hi Peter

could you pm me the details of the Yorkshire record please (for the county files)?

cheers

Chris

and welcome to WAB

[AlanS]

Back in the days when I was preparing an account of the Geoglossaceae (including Mitrula) for an intended multiauthor publication that never saw the light of day, I looked at quite a range of Mitrula material.
As I recall (without going and delving in some old German publications) there were some varietal names available for different fruit-body shapes, but so far as I could see there was no clear demarkation into distinct morphological variants and no correlation with microscopic characters.

There is a var. alba, which starts off white and becomes a delicate salmon pink, which I have only ever found once, but that seems to be the only variant of any note.

More interestingly, two other, very similar Mitrula species, distinguishable only for certain on spore characters, have been described in N. America and one of them also occurs in Europe, but I routinely checked all my own collections and quite a bit of herbarium material and so far we don't seem to have them. (Of course, all manner of other stalked ascomycetes have been included in Mitrula in the past.)

So, yes, Bog Beacons are Bog Beacons and they vary a bit!

Alan

[diggleken]

Hi all,
Alan,
found this today on wet and rotting twig, possibly balsam, maybe knotweed.
Would this be the variety Alba anyone?

Cheers
Ken