The Most Toadstools I Have Ever Seen

[Chris Yeates]

took a day off work today as the weather forecast was fairly positive and went to one of my favourite areas - a large area of coniferous plantations high (up to 430 metres) in the Pennines above Holmfirth; I intend to use it to finally get to grips with resupinates this winter - as fallen conifer branches are often a good substrate during the colder months - or so I have been assured

there is often a good display of a particular agaric, which grows on the coniferous litter on areas which have been clear-felled but today I was truly astonished; the fungus involved is
Hypholoma marginatum:


there were huge numbers of fruit-bodies - (unfortunately I didn't have a wide-angle lens with me so these shots show only relatively small portions of the site):


truly huge numbers:


(those are not beech leaves they are fruit-bodies!) . . . . I decided to try and get an idea of the numbers involved because they covered a large area; I made an estimate of 20 fruit-bodies per square metre - while there were areas without fruit-bodies, to balance those there were others where the number was easily into three figures per square metre; I am certain that 20 per square metre was definitely erring on the side of caution, and the average was actually higher

back home I worked out the area covered using Google Earth - fortunately the relevant aerial image is a recent one and the triangular area felled could be clearly seen

and my final figure? - bearing in mind this is a minimum figure . . . .

150,000 fruit-bodies

if anyone can give me a figure for the number of spores produced by a single Hypholoma marginatum basidiome during its active life I would be interested . . . .

phew

Chris

[ron1863]

Hi Chris, thats very interesting, I will need to keep an eye open on my local coniferous forest now. It has had hundreds of acres felled last year but not much growing there as yet.

[fairplay]

That's an awful lot of jam Chris.

Neil.

[Ditiola]

Quote: if anyone can give me a figure for the number of spores produced by a single Hypholoma marginatum basidiome during its active life I would be interested . . . .


Chris
Amazing display of fruit bodies

My rough calculation is as follows:

Spores on gill about 10 microns apart = 100 spores/mm

= 10,000 per mm squared

Gills approx 30mm x 10mm = 300mm squared x2 sides = 600mm squared

x 100 gills (guestinate from your photo) = 60,000 mm squared

Therefore total spores = 60,000 x 10,000 = 60,0000000 spores per fruit body

I will let you work out the total spores for the site!!

Peter

[fairplay]

"The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind" Bob Dylan.

Neil.

[SheffieldLass]

And Chris is now half human half Hypholoma marginatum ...