An Unkniown for ID Help Please

[Lancashire Lad]

Found these today: -

Growing on the bark of a large Ivy entwined around Silver Birch & Rhododendrons.
Fruitbodies up to approximately 20mm in height, and approximately 1mm in width.
The white "sporulating" surfaces released clouds of white spores on tapping.
They were growing on the thin bark layer, covering a rather mushy and brown coloured inner layer on the Ivy (visible in photos).
Unsure if the Ivy was diseased, as the top bark layer to which these were affixed could easily be smeared off from the undersurface with just finger pressure.

They had a similar sort of texture to Xylaria hypoxylon, but are unlike any X.hypoxylon that I've ever seen before, and of which there is lots in the nearby vicinity. (The stems appear almost "woody", and the older ones, visible in the first photo, have taken on a light brown colouration, rather than the black that is usual for X.hypoxylon).

I still haven't discounted the possibility of a lichen, but again, they are unlike any lichen I've seen before.



Any thoughts appreciated.

Regards,
Mike.

[fairplay]

If that is Rhododenron in the foreground, where the bark is peeled away I can see a crack in the wood, yet it also appears to be damp or is a very strange colour.
Perhaps the wood has come under attack from something else which has killed the Xylaria mycelium.

I say Xylaria, as I just cannot think of anything else this could be, problem is, Xylaria hypoxylon likes wood which has been dead some time and the wood shown here still has bark attached so I'm going to keep an open mind.

Worth keeping an eye on, this.

Neil.

[ashgale]

just a thought, but could these possibly be the aerial roots of the ivy, which has become covered in a mildew type of fungi ?

i say this because i cleared an old ivy from my garden a while back and it had rootlets like these (but without the white powdery coating) on many of the older stems,
probably way off the mark, and they probably look more fungal in real life than the photo's show,

j.

[Ditiola]

I think I will put my money on 'J' suggestion

Peter

[fairplay]

I know my place.

Neil.

[mebeingme]

Hi Mike,

I had a similar find yesterday. I moved a log to take a better photo (I failed) and clouds of white spores were also released. This species appeared to be growing on wood stumps (unidentified tree) but also prevalent in leaf litter. I originally thought that this might be early stages of Xylaria hypoxylon; according to Rogers fruiting bodies are “subcylindric at first”. I am wondering now whether this is Xylaria carpophila.

“X.carpophila – similar to X.hypoxylon but generally much more slender. Habitat on old, rotting beech masts. Season all year” – Rogers. Not sure whether this is solely restricted to beech? Spore print white.

[flaxton]

As far as I know X carpophila is only ever found on beech mast and is not really much like this find.

Mal

[mebeingme]

I'll get my coat.........

[flaxton]

Originally Posted by mebeingme

I'll get my coat.........

Don't you dare. Most of us have been through a phase of being wrong more often than being right. Eventually things turn about and the journey is great fun.

Mal

[Lancashire Lad]

Thanks for the replies everyone, much appreciated.

mebeingme - thanks for the suggestion, (and welcome to WAB by the way), but I'm confident that this isn't X.carpophila, as there are abundant examples of that in my area (at the right time of year), and, agreeing with Mal's comment, I've only ever seen it on Beechmast.
Took a long while to find my first example, but once found and identified, it seems to be all over the place. PS: Don't be put off by making wrong suggestions - you should see some of the howlers that I've made. (and still very often do ).

ashgale - (Welcome to WAB also) - I think that you might well be right. I've now done some browsing of Ivy aerial root images, and found a few that do indeed look quite similar to the growths in my pics.

My only problem is with the profusion of "white spores" given off when I tapped a couple of the stems. As the photos show, the under-bark wood of the ivy had a thin layer of a slimy/mushy brown consistency. So it could well be that Neil is correct with his suggestion that the wood had been attacked. Perhaps the "spores" might have been some form of mildew like mould that I was knocking off the surface of the aerial root?

Certainly a puzzler, but at least goes most of the way to sorting out why I couldn't find anything remotely similar in any of my fungi books.

Regards,
Mike.