Horse Hair fungus

This is a good time of year to find one of my favourite mushrooms: Marasmius hudsonii, which is found solely on Holly. Hunt around beneath a Holly bush, and have a close look at any soft, black and wet fallen leaves. Pink or white dots are the first indication that you've found one of the most interesting mushrooms we have:

Marasmius hudsonii on Holly

This mushroom is tiny: the cap is between 2 and 3 mm in diameter, and the stipe ('stem') is as fine as horse-hair, hence its common name: Horse-hair mushroom. But look even more closely, and you will see that the cap is covered with tiny, purple bristles.

Underneath, the cap has a few, relatively thick, gills:

Underside of Marasmius hudsonii, showing thick gills

I find this mushroom under almost every specimen of Holly I choose to examine, but there has to be a mat of the soft wet leaves for it to be found: too dry and they won't be there.

There's a similar (but unspiked) member of the same mushroom family that's found on wet Ivy leaves: Marasmius epiphylloides.

Ards revisited

As you will know, Ards has become a favourite place for me: the ancient forest with clean, western air is a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to find real treasures. I hoped to find fungi, but we can never be sure what we will find, given their ethereal nature.

From the outset it was clear that the recent cold weather had reduced the numbers of large mushrooms, but there is always plenty to see if you become sensitive to the smaller 'stuff', so I switched my attention to smaller things.

First is a species of Collybia that I have only seen a few times: Collybia aquosa. This is distinguished by its bulbous stipe. Cap is 25mm diameter.

Collybia aquosa

When I got the photographs back to the study, I had a closer look at the beastie on the gills and found this:

Psocid on Collybia

It appears to be a Psocid, or 'bark fly'. These are from a family of insects that eat bark in wild situations, but have become partial to paper in domestic situations, especially with regard to books.

Fungi and mosses are tightly associated: both like damp and darkness. This is Plagiothecium undulatum, which is very readily identified by the almost fish-like appearance of the shoots.

Plagiothecium undulatum

Mosses are very difficult to identify at first encounter, but once the relevant identification steps have been taken (microscopic analysis is essential), they are readily identifiable in situ. One of the identification features is 'leaflets mostly curving in one direction'. This feature is easily identifiable in the field, but less easy to show in a photograph:

Dicranum majus moss

This portrait shows the feature more clearly:

Dicranum majus close-up

I found this minute Waxcap specimen, and although it's far too young to identify, I'd make a decent stab at the Blackening Waxcap, Hygrocybe nigricans, which will turn orange, then red, then black:

Juvenile waxcap

Myxomycetes, or 'Slime moulds' have always been seen as part of the fungal family, but recent research has begun to associate them more with amoeba. They are certainly mobile, and they react to light.

Slime mould

They reproduce by spores and decompose vegetable material, but their mobility and reaction to light make them seem more like animals. These fruitbodies are about 1mm in diameter:

Slime mould close-up

Perhaps a Trichia sp.

On the way back to the car I spotted this grassland Panaeolus sp.:

Panaeolus sp.

And a festive sprig of Holly:

Holly berries

Gap between the showers

The Chrysomelid beetles are making a fine mess of the Willow leaves, only days after they have fully opened. This is Lochmaea caprea, and is confined to Willow.


Last week I showed Creeping Cinquefoil. This is its very close relative - Tormentil. Amazingly, I still have 3 species from this family to show in the near future.


As soon as the rain stops, the insects are back out cleaning themselves ready for their next flight. This is one of the Tenthredo sp. Sawflies. These are all strictly vegetarian as larvae and many are voracious predators as adults.


The wonderful, minute micromoth Glyphipterix simpliciella is one of the few to have a common name - Cocksfoot Moth. Its larvae live inside the stems of Cocksfoot grass and it is all of 4mm long. Check that on a ruler.


An amazing shot of a dead Holly leaf having been pierced in two places by the shoots of Horsetail, and being hoisted like a banner. The plant to the rear is Meadow Buttercup.


The end of a hoverfly. This spider had caught the fly and was in the process of beginning to wrap it up.


I have an expanding patch of purest white Bush Vetch in just one area. It appears to breed true from seed. I wonder when a sport like this becomes a (sub)species in its own right.

More on Holly

As Gill observed yesterday, the edges of the mine made by the mining fly Phytomyza ilicis on Holly leaves are currently very sharp:I spent a couple of years fretting over the problem that only one single species of insect mines Holly leaves. Holly must be a wonderful place to have a mine: hard leaves and sharp points are great protection. The answer to the dilemma is stranger than the solutions that readily come to mind. All leaves attempt to heal themselves, and Holly is no exception. Holly has a very hard exterior surface, and when it heals itself, it does so with great strength. That means that any insect close to the healing point would be liable to be squashed by the leaf surfaces. Phytomyza ilicis is the only miner that can move faster than the leaf heals, so that's why it's the only miner in Holly. At this time of year the sunlight is weak and the healing process is slow, so the edges of the mine are sharper than they are in summer.

Eagle-eyed observers will notice that this unfortunate individual hasn't made it. Even thick Holly leaves don't make you completely immune to the attentions of parasitic wasps.


And this is typical damage caused by the Vine Weevil - Otiorhynchus sulcatus .
Otiorhynchus sulcatus also feeds on Rhododendron and I expect you'll find similar damage on vine leaves, although I don't get to see too many of those in Donegal....

First excitement of the new year

Well, I suppose it all comes down to what you term 'excitement'.....

I was making a quick visit to Drumboe Wood in Ballybofey today and I took some pictures of various parasites on Holly (Leaf-miners, weevils, that sort of thing). Suddenly I noticed this fungal rust on a few of the leaves and thought "Hmmm...never seen a rust on Holly before".

It looks very much like Puccinia-type rusts, but when I got back to the reference books I found:

• there are no documented fungi that grow on healthy Holly leaves
• there are no documented Puccinias that grow on Holly at all.

After consultation and internet research, it turns out that a new Holly Puccinia was discovered in Europe in 1977, so I need to track down its specification and see if it matches what I have.

Another possibility was the Phycopeltis algal infection that can grow on Holly leaves, but that's only on the surface: this clearly goes into the leaf, as evidenced by the dark ring around the infection.

It's an Irish first, whatever it is.

This is the kind of thing that keeps me going: amateurs can still discover new things in new places....wonderful.