Catching up

Our unexpected spell of dry weather has continued, and has most certainly delayed the usual glut of fungi that would normally appear at this time of year. Last week, during the practical photography session on a macro course, we encountered dozens of mushrooms that were completely dried up, with the spores lying underneath them on the ground:

Dried fungi with spores underneath and on the cap

Spores are usually wind-borne, but these have simply dropped down onto the grass due to the complete calm. The actual fungi shouldn't suffer, since they are deeply buried inside wood or soil, and persist for years, but there will be little reproduction this year. Note that the caps are also covered in spores. Most spores are produced by the gills underneath, but some species are also able to produce spores via the upper surface of the cap and that looks to be what has happened here.

During a school trip this week, one of the pupils brought me a dead branch with fruitbodies of Chlorociboria aeruginascens: 

Chlorociboria aeruginascens on dead Oak

This fungus lives on dead Oak and Beech, and isn't too rare, but the fruitbodies seem to appear very rarely; this is the first time I have photographed them. Individual fruitbodies are around 3 - 5 mm. across the cap.

Now that I have the literature on spiders and harvestmen, I'm looking at them much more closely. This is the harvestman Leiobunum blackwalli:

Leiobunum blackwalli (female)

Leiobunum blackwalli (female)

Harvestmen don't make webs, but sit on or under leaves waiting for some prey to walk past. I love the way the white-lined eyes are up on stalks (called a 'turret').

New to my Species List.

  

In 2007 I found a gall on Oak which puzzled me:

Individual galls are secured by flaps of tissue on veins of the leaf, but are able to detach and fall to the ground. It didn't appear in references, and I couldn't get a name for it despite hours of searching. The new edition of Redfern and Shirley says it's very common, but I hadn't seen it before, and I haven't seen it since. It's made by the Cynipid wasp Neuroterus anthracinus. 

New to my Species List.

Most leaf miners stick to a very small set of plants, sometimes just one species, but some are a little more flexible and use a number of plants. This can make identifications tricky, since their appearance can be quite different on different hosts. I struggled a little with this mine of Agromyza idaeiana, which I often find on Raspberry or Meadowsweet, but this specimen was on Bramble:

The leaf miner Agromyza idaeiana on Bramble

The blotch at the end of the mine is much wider than I usually see, since it isn't constrained between veins like it is on the other plants.