Please help me ID this fungus!

[Jessamy]

Pic taken Streatham Common in South London, January 2011. Sorry for poor angle, sure ID would be easier if you could see underneath too

[FungiJohn]

Originally Posted by Jessamy

Pic taken Streatham Common in South London, January 2011. Sorry for poor angle, sure ID would be easier if you could see underneath too

Hi Jessamy and welcome to WAB.

Your fungus is very likely the Winter Twiglet - Tubaria hiemalis

John

[Ditiola]

Hi Jessamy

I will second that, have a look at my recent photo of this fungus in the Gallery

Peter

[watsthat]

But.. could it be Tubaria furfuracea?

Pete

[Jessamy]

Thank you very much

[FungiJohn]

Originally Posted by watsthat

But.. could it be Tubaria furfuracea?

Pete

The clue is in the Common name Pete

John

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by FungiJohn

....Your fungus is very likely the Winter Twiglet - Tubaria hiemalis....

Originally Posted by watsthat

But.. could it be Tubaria furfuracea?....

Originally Posted by FungiJohn

The clue is in the Common name Pete ....

I still like to think of T.hiemalis in its own right, as the winter fruiting species, but (certainly according to sources such as Basidiomycota Checklist), T.hiemalis and T.furfuracea are now regarded as one and the same species - If you search that database for T.hiemalis, you are given the synonym T.furfuracea.

Regards,
Mike.

[FungiJohn]

Originally Posted by Lancashire Lad

I still like to think of T.hiemalis in its own right, as the winter fruiting species, but (certainly according to sources such as Basidiomycota Checklist), T.hiemalis and T.furfuracea are now regarded as one and the same species - If you search that database for T.hiemalis, you are given the synonym T.furfuracea.

Regards,
Mike.

I'll run it by Nick Legon Mike

John

[AlanS]

Yes, in my own experience, separation of Tubaria hiemalis and T. furfuracea on macroscopic characters is always backed up by spore size, slight differences in the cystidia.

So I was not at all surprised to see them lumped into one species in the Basidiomycete checklist .....

Alan

[FungiJohn]

Nick Legon kindly commented:

Tubaria hiemalis. This 'species' has been synonymised with T. furfuracea. However, it may possibly be a distinct taxon but there are very few differences between it and T. furfuracea - T. hiemalis is usually collected in the depths of winter which is a reason (but not a very good one !) for separating it and the lamellae are NOT decurrent onto the stipe as in T. furfuracea and the cheilocystidia are supposedly different - BUT there seem to be intermediates - DNA might sort out the problem but it has not been done as far as I'm aware.

John