Showing posts with label Ladys Winkins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ladys Winkins. Show all posts

Earthstar Trek

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Wednesday, 23 October 2013 19:34

I've been out to Ladys Winkins again today with my good friend Howard Matcham and his sidekick, Barney the dog. I saw lots of cool species and added at least four new fungi and one very rare moss. First up we saw loads of these Sessile Earthstars, the first earthstar I have seen other than the common Collared Earthstar.

Howard found these Foetid Parachutes in the area a few days ago and I was glad to refind them as this is quite a scarce species. It really does smell bad, like rotting cabbages.

These Cucumber Caps smelled a little more refreshing of, you've guessed it, cucumber. Another new species for me. A specialist of wood chip piles.

This Rooting Shank is a relatively common species that has passed me by until now.

By far the rarest thing we saw though was this moss that was actually discovered new to Britain by Howard and Barney this year! It's Ditrichum pallidum and is not even the books yet! I'm only the third person to see it in the UK.

I also saw lots of other interesting species that I rarely come across like Magpie Inkcaps, Lapidary Snails, Golden Scalycaps and Nut-tree Tussock larvae. Also, this is only the second time I have seen Dog Stinkhorn. There were at least 20 fruiting in one small area.

Always nice to see White Saddles too.

And of course none of this could have been possible without Howard and his owner Barney. A big thanks to them both for getting me back into fungi today!

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A Noble Wall

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Monday, 28 November 2011 07:35

After showing me his Wrinkled Peach, Howard took me to a fantastic wall on the Goodwood estate with some rather fantastic mosses. It was one of those moments where you see a new community for the first time and nearly everything is different and new. First off was the species I coveted the most, Prince of Wales Feather-moss Leptodon smithii.
And here is the exact same moss when it is dry and curled up.
Growing with the above was this moss (quite nice for an acrocarp) and also very distinctive. Howard found this soon after getting into mosses in the 1980s and it is still one of the most easterly sites for this species in the UK. It's Tortella nitida.
On the top of the same wall, I was also shown this moss which looked quite like the much commoner Homalothecium sericeum at first but was quite different on closer inspection. It's Leucodon sciuroides.
And here is Howard holding up a column, Howard is the one on the right.
I was then shown a are moss growing on the exposed roots of a Beech tree and was pleasantly surprised to find the two bryophytes growing adjacent to this moss were also ticks. So, in the order that they were revealed to me we have Cirriphyllum crassinervium.
The rather crisped up liverwort Porella platyphylla.
And the rare one, Scorpiurium circinatum.
And finally. growing on flints on the ground. The tiny and scarce liverwort Lophocolea fragrans.

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