due to the recent very cold weather and being rather late in the year. Luckily, she was
proved quite wrong, as 6 pairs of trained eyes found lots of specimens, among which 73
taxa were identified, 43 new to the records for this wood. Lots of other things were
found too, but a number of small things were unidentified due to Mary's poor skills with
Bonnets Mycena and related genera, in other words lbjs.
We set off along a woodland path and it took us over half an hour to progress about
200m as there were so many things to find. The aim was to go along this path through
the northern part of the wood, then to join the perimeter path along the east and southern
edges and so proceed back to the car park having sampled all the main areas. We stopped
for lunch and sat in a row along a convenient fallen tall tree, which was very convivial
although the weather was not too well suited to sitting down at all. We wandered around
the path quite a lot, as mycologists tend to do, and found we had moved in a complete
circle and did not know where we were. Fortunately the wood is small enough to be
able to tell where the edges are, with open arable land on all sides, so, in spite of
unsuccessful efforts to read the map, we found our way back eventually.
We lost Martin Gregory of course, but he refound us just as we reached the car park.
Martin does not get lost; he always finds his way back. He was a great asset on this trip, as
he always is, in pointing out tiny things nobody else would notice. This time it was Redleg
Club Typhula erythropus that he spotted on an Ash petiole in the leaf litter, and also Hazel
Mildew Phylactinia guttata on the underside of a Hazel leaf. A number of other tiny things
were identified by him later. Another interesting find was small Oysterlings on dead twigs
that we thought were Crepidotus variabilis but actually were C. cesatii, discovered later;
they are very common and usually mistaken for the first named.
Lots of sticks had things on, including the interesting little Hypocrea aureoviridis which
is like tiny yellow buttons but with dark blue-green dots where the dark spores are
ripening. Someone found some deep blue-green wood, part of a twig, which was Green
Elfcup Chlorociboria aeruginascens even though no cups were seen. This wood, known
as 'green oak', was used for patterned inlaid work which was known as Tunbridge ware
in Victorian days. Many of the assorted bits growing on wood were hard to identify at
the time, but several interesting things were tackled later and found to be mainly assorted
Ascomycetes. One was sent to Kew where Dr Brian Spooner identified it and sent me
back a name of Nitschkia confertula for it. He said this was definitely uncommon but
apparently widespread in Britain and it grows on dead Ash. I had never seen it before,
and it was not in my books.
A young fruitbody of Trooping Funnel Clitocybe, geotropa aroused interest since the
stipe was robust but carrying a rather small cap. But the book showed young ones like
that, though we were slightly disappointed not to see a really big one, nor a troop of
them. The main excitement of the day was Claudi Soler stumbling into a patch of hundreds
of thin light brown rods of Pipe Club Macrotyphula fistulosa. Claudi took a photo of it,
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 58, January 2009
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