I found the Ochre-gilled cavalier Melanoleuca cognata in Hanningfield Nature
Reserve when listening to the dawn chorus, also in May 2000. I returned to
photograph it with the help of the warden Claire Cadman. It was growing on a heap of
wood chips inhabited by Wood ants. I identified it as a Melanoleuca on the basis of its
rough spores, which stained blue-black with a stain containing iodine, and its
possession of large flask shaped cells called cheilocystidia on its gill margins. This
genus of toadstools is in a state of confusion and there is some doubt as to the precise
characters of each species. However its appearance in early spring and the nature of
its cheilocystidia points as conclusively as possible to this species.
So both of these organisms have their method of obtaining food in common although
in reality the orchid is relying on a fungus. Such saprophytes play a major role in the
decay of plant material and help recycle the minerals locked up in the dead wood and
leaves.
Footnote
Please note that the tooth-fungus described by Geoffrey Wilkinson in the last newsletter is now
called Hericium coralloides.
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 33, September 2000
14