Some great fungi on a foray a couple of weekends ago. Amethyst Deceiver, Beefsteak, Jellied Ear and Lilac Bonnet were just a few of the forty something species we saw on the day. Not all easy to identify … it’s quicker and simpler when you have Tony Leech the county recorder to hand helping out. Thanks Tony.
Pulling itself from under the dunes the other day was this Collared Earthstar – so alien these things … but so beautiful.
There were quite a few fungi we stumbled across on our tours to Minsmere in Suffolk this last week. The Birds Nest Fungi is probably the most fascinating. I photographed these with a five pence piece to give some sense of scale; they are tiny. As the fruiting body ripens it reveals the ‘nest’ containing the spore cases which look similar to eggs sitting inside.
As raindrops splash into the cup they disperse the spore cases.
When Sharon says ‘look at this’ it’s always something on the ground. Honestly the woman must have a crick in her neck. She finds more, snakes, insects and money than anyone else I know. This time it was fungi.
We were on the Deer and Seal Photographic day the other week when my attention was drawn to what looked like a handful of those bobbly rubber finger mits used by bank clerks for counting cash. I had no idea of its name. Even the books I have on fungi didn’t reveal any identity; we poured over them for hours. Eventually I gave in and called in the experts.
Tony Leech is a lovely chap and he has the distinguished title of Norfolk Fungi recorder; even he struggled. I felt vindicated. Eventually Richard Shotbolt came to our rescue.
Our specimen is Cystoderma granulosum, by no means a common fungus with just four previous Norfolk records. The ‘warts’ apparently fall off as the fungus matures – so all the fungi in the shot are the same species. None of the field guides show the young stage and very few pictures on Google images show it. I am told the photo is probably the first to show the two stages together.
Letter From Norfolk 