Fungus forays on a single beech tree
Graham Smith 48 The Meads, Ingatestone, Essex CM4 OAE
In the Field Club Newsletter of January 2001 I wrote a short piece on the fungi that had
colonised a dead Beech on the Writtle Park estate, following the old tree's demise in the
mid- 1990s. Eighteen months on I thought a brief update might be of interest. At mat time
1 had recorded eighteen species, fifteen of which were mentioned in the text, the other
three being Oyster Fungus Pleurotus ostreatus, Velvet Shanks Flammulina velutipes and
Sulphur Tuft Hypholoma fasciculare - all three of which have subsequently reappeared.
Since January last year several more major branches have crashed to earth but the main
trunk is still standing, albeit looking brittle and powdery in places: its vicinity not the best
of places to linger on a windy day! The potentially productive wet weather during the
later winter and early spring of 2001 coincided with the Foot & Mouth epidemic, when
the countryside was out of bounds to walkers, but two common species were added in
May, namely, the variegated brackets of Trametes multicolor and blackish crusts of
Ustulina deusta, the latter of which crumble easily between the fingers when old. A
dampish autumn - which in general was good for grassland fungi but poor for many of
their woodland counterparts - looked like being completely unproductive until, in mid-
September, the old tree produced its best species yet - the legendary Ganoderma pfeifferi.
Why it should be legendary is unclear but may be because it is almost impossible either
to spell or to pronounce! Beautiful it undoubtedly is, though: the copper-coloured, yellow-
margined upper surface resembling glazed honey, while the pores are creamy-ochraceous.
Alas, when I returned a few days later with my camera to photograph it some whatsit had
kicked it off the tree! The winter of 2001-02 produced a second polypore, namely, the
Winter Polypore Polyporus brumalis to add to Polyporus melanopus, found earlier, while
the new year downpours yielded two further common bracket fungi - Datronia mollis
and Stereum ochraceo-flavum. Thus, at the present time the total stands at twenty-four
species - a modest tally - but I'm sure that the old tree still has plenty of surprises in store
over the next few years.
Help needed to uncover the distribution of a parasitoid of Pine
Ladybirds
Paul Mabbott 49 Endowood Road Sheffield S7 2LY
email: paulmabbott@blueyonder.co.uk
While studying the life cycle of the Pine Ladybird, Exochomus quadripustulatus, in
Sheffield, we have found the pupae (see plate 4) to be heavily parasitised by the Chalcid
wasp Aprostocetus neglectus. This is an endoparasite - the hymenopteran inserts its eggs
into the larva or pupa of the beetle where they develop before cutting themselves out of
the dead pupa after they have matured. It is unlikely that you will see the wasp: it is much
8 Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 39, November 2002