UK Fungi

Thanks for the reply Maxine - and yes, I got nowhere with Ellis & Ellis but after checking all the non-lichenised lichens (thanks to a link Anthony Speca posted on Bluesky) its not one with a BLS number.

I gave a year or two to trying to get somewhere with micro-fungi but in the end gave it up as ...

On a twig - a small perithecium (?) with a flattened, concave apex, K+ brownish-green but photobiont absent.

Asci possibly less than 8-spored, spores green > brown, (1-)3(-4) septate, occasionally with a vertical septa, 22-25 x 10-12 µm. Some, but not all, of the septa were noticeably pale.

In ...

Thanks Neil - the lack of granules in the epithecium, but their presence in the margins confused me!

However checking the Italic 8 descriptium for M. dispersa it includes:

Thalline exciple corticate, obscured by granules insoluble in K

though that's not mentioned in the LGBI3 account

Following an interesting talk on Trapelia's on a Zoom lichen meeting I looked again at old photos (Ireland 2009) that I'd identified as Trapelia glebulosa and wondered if the two below are Trapelia involuta instead?


Trapelia involuta not glebulosa 0908270054b.jpg Trapelia involuta not glebulosa ...

I think this is Unguiculariopsis lesdainii on a fence post Lecanora - but I'm struggling with the host identity!
Unguiculariopsis apothecia with swollen-based, whitish hairs, becoming +/- open as mature and not bleeding K+ red. Spores 5-6(-7) x 2 µm.

w Unguiculariopsis lesdainii 250315 011.jpg w ...

Thanks Neil, I'll let Bryan Edwards know as if Vince hasn't come across it in Dorset it'll be new to VC9

Appalling micrograph, but this was the only possibility from last night:

Hi Neil and thanks for your replies.

I've a memory of having seen what could have been a small loose mass of very tiny hyaline, subcylindrical conidia but didn't take a micrograph as I didn't think they were large/dark enough to be what I was looking for!

Applied a tiny drop of K to the original ...

Probably not but it's worth an ask!

Just one very tiny pycnidium found when checking Chrysothrix flavovirens apothecia - the size (24 µm diam) seems to be in the range for Minutophoma chrysophthalmae and the base is open but no obvious conidia I was aware of.

z QQ Minutophoma 250219 012.jpg z ...

Thank you Mark and Neil - I came across 2021 photos of lichens on the same or nearby decorticated pine after posting and realised there was a patch of fertile Chrysothrix flavovirens on it then!

Not many apothecia in the bit I collected yesterday and sadly no sign of Minutophoma chrysophthalmae!

Dorset - surprised to find a fertile Chrysothrix on a long-dead tree stump (either pine or possibly willow), the spores 3-septate, c10-12 x 2.5-3 µm.

Presumably Chrysothrix flavovirens but despite apparently negative chemical reactions there was a K/UV+ yellow reaction as well as the UV+ orange ...

I found a small fertile thallus of Enterographa crassa on a thin Hazel branch in a Dorset woodland and what appears to be a smaller, infertile bit on a Hawthorn twig.

But a similar thick bluish-grey thallus further along the Hazel branch had punctiform white soredia - which isn't mentioned in the ...