When is a tree not a tree?

[Chris Yeates]

I think this is definitely worth starting a new thread about as it highlights a very interesting habitat type

Yesterday I was on the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union field excursion to Ballowfields local nature reserve, near Carperby in Upper Wensleydale.

A very interesting site, with species rich marshy grassland with orchids, grass of parnassus etc, but also with areas rich in lead (which was mined around here in the 18th century) and - especially - zinc, as the sphalerite was not valued at that time; so plenty of spring sandwort and - very interesting to see in an inland site - thrift

I could have spent all day in the marshland looking for my beloved micro's, but I was keen to get into the 10km square SD99, which only had some 30 fungus species recorded in it; struggling up a steep - and hazardous - scree slope I came across an Amanita - of which more later . . . . because of the habitat it was growing with I had hopes that a phenomenon I have encountered a couple of times before was at play here and these hopes were vindicated

so here we go - this is the habitat:


and within it - boletes!


quite a number of fruit-bodies
Boletus luridus:


here growing as you can see from the image above growing well away from any trees and shrubs; its mycorhizal host here is common rockrose Helianthemum nummularium and there is more to come . . . .

PS the teeth mark are interesting - lots of rabbits in this area, but also (apparently) red squirrels - there appear to be two types of toothmarks in evidence here . . .



cheers

Chris

[cowshill]

Fascinating, Chris! It's a rare day I don't learn something new in this forum. Thanks!
- Jim

[Chris Yeates]

OK here comes the next one . . . .

my suspicion is that is something common, but given this highly-specialised habitat (what Andreas would call a biotope - actually he would say 'biotop' and the term is originally a German one) I think it is worth extracting as much as I can (I see a possible article in the Naturalist here) and, more importantly, eliciting comments and getting people to see if they can find similar environments

a gilled fungus, growing in clumps - some resembling the partial rings of Marasmius oreades:


closer to, a collybioid agaric with noticeably downy stems:


distinctly hygrophanous - starting off toffee-coloured (indeed very like M. oreades again) and ending up much paler:


one glance at the gills and this is clearly not fairy-ring champignon (NB how useful scanners can be for obtaining images of fungi, and the colours are rendered much truer to life than any camera - but please let's discuss that elsewhere):


a closer look under the stereo 'scope shows the abundant caulocystidia - here towards the apex of the stem:


the gill edge is sterile, with cheilocystidia throughout, but with tufts of more prominent ones:



under the compound microscope those cystidia are very distinctive, irregularly coralloid and reminiscent of the fantastic landscapes of the Surrealist painter Yves Tanguy . . . :


spore-print still forming, but spores colourless - basidia 4-spored

despite the extremely anomalous biotope, these appear to be Gymnopus confluens . . . . there is a Gymnopus oreadoides, which I haven't entirely excluded . . . .

however - here comes the fly in the ointment! In the whole Gymnopus/Collybia/Marasmiellus area a key character is the structure of the cap - under a x10 lens, and especially at x40 under the stereoscope, the cap was distinctly bristly with scattered pileocystidia - here they are under a higher magnification:


I can find no mention of such a feature in for example Antonin and
Noordeloos' monograph in Libri Botanici no. 17 . . . . . help Andreas! or indeed anyone else

and I have still got an omphaliod agaric, a Cortinarius, an Inocybe and that Amanita from this "Helianthemeton" to look at

phew

Chris

[Chris Yeates]

here comes the omphalioid one . . . . this is probably growing in this site because of the mosses rather than the "Helianthemum on zinc and lead rich limestone" habitat, but for completeness, and in a hope of getting an ID, I'm posting it here

I've yet to do the microscopy, but here are some macro-images (I'm hoping Rob and Melanie may chip in here at some point, because I know they have a lot of experience of grassland toadstools) Melanie would have loved the site - both the nature reserve itself and the scores of hectares of unimproved limestone grassland up to Ivy Scar and beyond - with no one to tell you to "get of moi laaarnd"!

now I appreciate that Omphalina is probably an untenable genus and that the species contained within it will soon all be redisposed into Arrhenia and other genera, but I think this falls within Omphalina in the sense of Funga Nordica

the fungus in the field - no evidence of lichenisation:


showing definite cross-veining of the gills:


and under the scanner for the "true colour" effect - side view:


and cap colour (at no stage did this appear more marginally striate than as seen here):


any hints at this stage much appreciated . . . . micro images to follow

cheers

Chris

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

here comes the omphalioid one . . . . this is probably growing in this site because of the mosses rather than the "Helianthemum on zinc and lead rich limestone" habitat, but for completeness, and in a hope of getting an ID, I'm posting it here

I've yet to do the microscopy, but here are some macro-images (I'm hoping Rob and Melanie may chip in here at some point, because I know they have a lot of experience of grassland toadstools) Melanie would have loved the site - both the nature reserve itself and the scores of hectares of unimproved limestone grassland up to Ivy Scar and beyond - with no one to tell you to "get of moi laaarnd"!

now I appreciate that Omphalina is probably an untenable genus and that the species contained within it will soon all be redisposed into Arrhenia and other genera, but I think this falls within Omphalina in the sense of Funga Nordica

the fungus in the field - no evidence of lichenisation:


showing definite cross-veining of the gills:


and under the scanner for the "true colour" effect - side view:


and cap colour (at no stage did this appear more marginally striate than as seen here):


any hints at this stage much appreciated . . . . micro images to follow

cheers

Chris

Over to Rob .....
(BTW any Hygrocybe yet on the grassland? The only ones I've had so far are H conica, and not a squeak of any on my old site which I visited 4 days ago. The grassland was very 'quiet', just a few Psilocybe cophrophila and a small cluster of Calocybe (Rugomyces) carnea. )

Melanie

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

Over to Rob .....
(BTW any Hygrocybe yet on the grassland? The only ones I've had so far are H conica, and not a squeak of any on my old site which I visited 4 days ago. The grassland was very 'quiet', just a few Psilocybe cophrophila and a small cluster of Calocybe (Rugomyces) carnea. )

Melanie

sadly it's a long way away - don't know when/if I'll ever get back there and it would make a fantastic local 'patch' -as with so many things base-rich areas tend to produce a lot of the more interesting stuff; much closer to you I did see Boletus luridus with the same host in Ruston Cow Pasture nearly 30 years ago

the only Hygrocybe I noticed yesterday was H. pratensis

PS - do you have any hints for Rob re his Psilocybe coprophila / merdaria query on the dung thread?

best

Chris

[RobSutton]

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

Over to Rob .....
(BTW any Hygrocybe yet on the grassland? The only ones I've had so far are H conica, and not a squeak of any on my old site which I visited 4 days ago. The grassland was very 'quiet', just a few Psilocybe cophrophila and a small cluster of Calocybe (Rugomyces) carnea. )

Melanie

It's at this point I remember that I'm actually a zoologist, and must get the moth trap out tonight ........

I'm sure I'll learn a lot as the story unfolds over the next couple of days.

[Chris Yeates]

OK they aren't getting any easier (actually Hygrocybe pratensis, meadow waxcap, and Clitopilus prunulus, the miller - after a quick check of the spores - and both from this same habitat were straightforward)

this is an Inocybe (a mycorrhizal genus, of course - unlike the two mentioned above):


the upper portion of the stem had a distinctive pale pinkish/lilaceous flush:


and scanned - to show cap colour (which was not unlike I. rimosa, I suppose) - stem minutely pruinose down its entire length (though the pinkish flush barely noticeable after two days in the fridge - this why one must note these fleeting characters in the field), and with an emarginate bulb:


under the microscope, the gills had abundant metuloids:


basidia were (all?) 4-spored - wish I'd checked when I first got them back, and not when most of the basidia had ripened - basidiospores were mostly almond-shaped and 8.3-10.5 x 4.3-5.6µm:


using Funga Nordica I have come up with a tentative ID of Inocybe hirtella, but as my sense of smell is pretty poor these days I am going to have to take it into work tomorrow and inflict it on my colleagues , as that seems to be an important character from here in. Imagine if you had to smell tiny discomycetes to identify them !)

slowly coming to an end with this marathon . . . next the Amanita - then the Cortinarius

cheers

Chris

[RobSutton]

I've just had a go at this with the provisional new Keys to Inocybe available from Penny Cullington (as advertised in Field Mycology a few issues ago). Assuming it smelt of marzipan it came down to I.hirtella. I tried following the key further assuming no smell of marzipan (or Pelargonium later on) and came to and stopped at I.mycenoides which they note as being from a single collection associated with Helianthemum and as having a "stipe with pink or reddish tinges in mid-region but whitish below". Spore sizes seem to fit length wise (8.5 - 10.5) but a bit narrow for their width (5.5 - 6.5)

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

re collybioid fungus:
spore-print still forming, but spores colourless - basidia 4-spored

Chris

here are the (very uninspiring) spores tweaked with extra contrast to show them up a bit - interestingly some starting to germinate by the looks of it . . .


well, rather small dacryoid spores and totally in agreement with Gymnopus confluens; so apart from the highly atypical habitat and those protruding cystidia on the cap - sorted

sodding agarics . . . . . life's too short