UK Fungi

Here is Melanohalea exasperata from the top rail of a timber guard round an orchard tree planted some 15-20 years ago. 1_Melanohaleaexasperata_20200611_190256_6110012L.jpg 1_Melanohaleaexasperata_20200611_185509_6110010J.jpg c- medulla. Surface covered in volcano pimples with a pale crater. Woohoo -...

It is good to see you have some of my constant companions - the likes of Physcia tenella and Physcia adscendens - in the report, beneath eagle perches. I must keep an eye out for that habitat in Gloucestershire. I did actually have a Bald Eagle in my garden once, escaped from a sanctuary.

It is always tricky when lichens are wet. I've just taken these photos of a good Lecanora campestris specimen dry and wet because yours looked a bit too lobate to me, and I couldn't see any fruit to reassure me you were in the right area. As you will see, mine is much lumpier (warted) than yours, la...

I wasn't sure whether to post this at all, but given Mark Powell's comment elsewhere on this site that Xanthoria polycarpa is a species "gone out of fashion" and several discussions I've had recently with people that either never see it or have trouble differentiating it from parietina, this seems t...

I came across an Ash in the Cotswolds, Vc33 East Gloucestershire, with Physconia enteroxantha and Physconia grisea side by side. It makes an interesting study, particularly when working the keys. mm-scale_20200317_085825_3170036.jpg Using the Key in the Flora 2009, p704, both are sorediate, so that ...

OK thanks, everyone. At least I know what a cephalothecioid plate is now in theory, but, as you said Paul, if I can see them at all, they are much less well defined in my specimen than the scanning electron microscope photo you attached. A good hard squash of the perithecia can yield a sort of latti...

Is this Weddellomyces pachyosporula? It is parasitising Aspicilia contorta on ballast from the track of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway in Vc33 East Gloucestershire. crop20200310_190836_3100043.jpg crop20200310_190311_3100031.jpg I have keyed it out in the Draft Lichenicolous Pyrenoca...

Thanks All for your responses. It's not just me, then! I attach two more photos showing that the small hairs definitely do occur on the upper surface, in this example anyway. I don't think they are evenly spread across the whole lichen, though it is hard to tell once the isidia become dense. Perhaps...

I'm having problems with this tiny hairy jelly from a Cotswold oolitic limestone walltop. I've tried several keys, including the Draft key to Collemataceae on the BLS website. https://www.britishlichensociety.org.uk/sites/www.britishlichensociety.org.uk/files/BLF3%20accounts%20-%20Collemataceae%201....

I was lucky enough to find fertile Diploicia canescens on the bark of a senescent ash pollard last week, within a few hundred yards of the Severn in the south of Gloucestershire, so fairly near the coast if not exactly maritime. It is only the second time I have found Diploicia canescens fertile in ...

My quibble wasn't whether Domestos contained sodium hydroxide or not, but that it gives a red reaction. A few years back I was running a beginners' session and provided them with KOH, Domestos, and Xanthoria parietina. "Does a spot of K give a reaction?" I ask. Yes! they reply delightedly. "Does C g...

I contacted Paul Diederich who agreed that this looks like a Polycoccum from the photos but not to worry about the species. He added that the genus Polycoccum needs serious revision, plus descriptions of the many as yet undescribed species. If you collect material of a well-known Polycoccum, it shou...