These are densely packed crustose lichens, on the bark of a young birch tree in Sheepfield Copse. Groups of lichen species are often consistently associated together, forming recognisable communities. It is probable this is a community, containing several species of Arthonia, that grows on smooth barked trees.
Auricularia auricula-judae is one of the few fungi that produces fruiting bodies all year round. Winter hardly seems to trouble it and we found these specimens in the strip of wood between Lambrok Meadow and Kestrel Field, in the second week of January with the early sunshine just beginning to melt the frost that had covered them overnight.
Continue reading “Wood ear”
The Wildlife Wheel has been there, in the corner of Sheepfield, for almost twenty years. It has aged in those years, changed colour, split and grown a fascinating crop of lichens.
Read on:
This is fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) found, rather unusually, under a goat willow in the park; birch and pine are its preferred partners.
Simon and Sarah Handley have sent in pictures of some of the many beautiful fungi in the park this month.
This is a picture of a bracket fungus on an oak tree in the park. The mycelium, which is the main part of the fungus, is growing invisibly inside the tree. This beautiful outgrowth is the fruiting body, part of the fungus’s reproductive system.
Inkcaps are a group of fungi with gills that liquefy as they mature and drip an inky black liquid that, in the past, was frequently used to make ink.
