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House of Waxcaps
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Thursday, 10 November 2011 18:21
I've been at Ebernoe the last few days and have spent my lunch breaks on the cricket pitch trying to get to grips with waxcaps. I downloaded Peter Russell's key and headed out into the field, literally. There were a few species there that I already new like Snowy Waxcap and Parrot Waxcap. By far the two most abundant species there are red ones and yellow ones. The bright scarlet ones with dryish caps keyed out to Scarlet Waxcaps.
The orange/yellow ones keyed out to Golden Waxcap. This also seems right as the cap and stem are both very slimy, quite different to the other species.
Back to the reserve and a quick look over the wall of the churchyard showed these Meadow Waxcaps. A big waxcap with an apricot cap and a white stipe. Three new waxcaps in one day (they are all common) but the best fungus I saw was this attractive little things called an Earthy Powdercap. If you like brightly coloured fungus in large numbers, go and have a look at the cricket pitch!
And finally, whilst attaching a data logger to a Beech tree deep under the understroey of Holly, I spotted this strange thing. I thought it was Lepidoptera at first but I now realise it's Diptera (it had no legs when I lifted it up and looked under its skirt - how rude). Is this the larvae of some kind of hoverfly? It was about 1 cm long. Would love to know if anyone knows what species or genus this in, never seen anything like it. Like a stegosaurus crossed with a slug.
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I like the Stegosaurus/slug (slugosaurus?). It looks similar to the hoverfly genus Dasysyrphus, but there are some similar looking larvae in related genera. Do you have any other photos? Did it have long tapering projections at the back end?