Category Archives: Natural History

Love of Nature, Natural History, Nature Reserves

Fabulous fungus Foray in Chiswick!

LWT Conservation Officer Netty Ribeaux and mushroom expert Alick Henrici briefing the early arrivals
Collared Earthstar

Well, here is the list that I wrote down as we went round. I’m sure that Alick Henrici who was leading the group named more species than this, and he also declined to name several difficult species which he collected in his little box to take for analysis back at Kew by his colleague Geoffrey Kibbey! Still, the fact that the group found so many – and there was no doubt at all that having more pairs of eyes resulted in more finds – was surprising to most people present. We walked anticlockwise around the reserve, and found the species in the order shown.

Hypholoma fasciculare, the very common but pretty yellow Sulphur Tuft, on a loggery near the start of the walk. It’s always on rotting wood.

Trametes (Coriolus) versicolor, the Turkeytail, a very common but elegant little bracket, forming troops on fallen branches and logs. The name Coriolus seems like the Coriolis effect that makes storms whirl around, and it does have a whirly effect on its patterned top surface.

Stereum hirsutum, another very common species, the Hairy Curtain Crust or False Turkeytail, forms a white crust on logs, its top gently velvety (hence ‘hirsutum’, hairy), with no pores

An Ascomycete, a spore-shooting fungus with its spores 4 in a row under the microscope, forming firm little brown balls on logs.

Schizopora paradoxa, thin white layer on logs

Piptoporus betulinus, the Birch Polypore or Razorstrop Fungus – when dried it was used to put a polish on the old Sweeney Todd the Barber type of cutthroat razor! Finding it is practically guaranteed on dead Birch wood, standing or fallen.

Fruiting bodies of a slime mould (not a typical fungus)

A slime mould, forming small squashy grey-brown blobs on rotting logs.

Laxitextum bicolor – you saw it here first! The name bicolor means coloured differently on the top and bottom – as you can see, the underside is very pale, the top a rich dark brown with a creamy edge.

Dark trooping bracket Laxitextum bicolor, new to UK in last 5 years, first record from Gunnersbury Triangle today! Alick said it seemed to be making itself quite at home, and indeed while those of us who recognise a few of the common brackets couldn’t have placed this species, we’d never have guessed it was brand new.

Ramariopsis subtilis (Clavariaceae), a small white Coral fungus with antler-like branches
Lycoperdum perlatum, the common Puffball, here very ripe and ready to puff spores at the slightest touch

Lycoperdum perlatum, the common Puffball. Alick told us the marvellously funny etymology of the name: Lykos is Greek for wolf, perdon for fart, and perlatum is Latin for pearly, meaning the surface decoration. Perhaps the puff of brown spores when you touch an old specimen is the wolf’s fart, who knows.

Mycena spp.

Ganoderma adspersum, Southern bracket, a round solid plate of a fungus, hard as nails, growing on a Willow stump
Russula sp., a colourful Brittlegill (yes, the caps are fragile, but distinctively thick). There are lots of species in greys, yellows, reds, pinks, and purples. This one has been nibbled by slugs. Some people eat them but there are some red species called Sickeners, definitely not a good idea.

Tricholoma album

Otidea alutacea, the tan ear (related to O. onotica, the hare’s ear), a small fungus of bare ground. Notethe birch leaf for size.

Hebeloma sp., a Poisonpie toadstool

Cortinarius sp. (Webcaps), subgenus Telamonia, a very difficult group, separated by DNA analysis. Into Alick’s box it went!

Geastrum triplex, the Collared Earthstar (photo at top), a really handsome and uncommon fungus. We seem to be getting it every year here now, a delight. Alick has found 3 species of Earthstar here in Gunnersbury Triangle.

Melanoleuca sp., a cavalier mushroom

Tricholoma cf fulvum, the Birch Knight mushroom. Fulvum means tawny yellow, and yes, it’s always with Birch trees.
Ramaria Coral fungus growing on a several-year-old logpile, dark and damp. Looks close to R. stricta, the upright coral, in the book but there are numerous species, not all illustrated there.

Clavaria sp., a small species of club fungus

Armillaria mellea, the Honey Fungus, a dangerous parasite of trees, and it continues to flourish as a saprophyte after they are dead, rotting their wood. Its English name is for its warm honey colour. It can be eaten but who’d want to.

GT Mycena olida (always on moss), a tiny species also called the Rancid Bonnet, best recognised by its habitat!

Mycena archangeliana

Laccaria amethystina, the Amethyst Deceiver, quite a beautiful colour in the grass; it fades when dried.

We saw no fewer than 3 species of Deceiver, including Laccaria laccata, the (common) Deceiver, as well as the two illustrated here. The group is well named; beginners collect handfuls of interesting-looking mushrooms of all different shapes, sizes, and appearances, and are crestfallen to discover they’re all the same species!

Laccaria proxima, the scurfy Deceiver. It has a wrinkled stipe with whitish lines, and a darker cap

Inocybe geophylla, the white Fibrecap

Mycena rosea, the Rosy Bonnet, one of the larger bonnet mushrooms

Mycena pura, the very common and variable Lilac Bonnet, another relatively large and attractive bonnet mushroom. The Collins guide says that some think M. rosea is just a form of this species.

Environment, Love of Nature, Natural History, Walks

Barden Moor, Yorkshire Dales

Lower Barden Reservoir, constructed in the 1880s by Bradford Corporation Water Works

Barden Moor is an extensive water catchment area, on acidic rock (Millstone Grit), providing soft drinking water to the city of Bradford. The area is part of the ancient Bolton Abbey estate, and is now also in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It’s covered in heather and moorgrass with areas of meadow and bog pools. It’s a fine place for an open airy walk away from the sometimes busy mountaintops, and a wonderful spot for nature.

Apricot Club, Clavulinopsis luteoalba. The fungi are yellow all over, but some look white in the bright light. The clubs are quite broad, unlike the slim spindles of C. fusiformis.
The grooved Earthtongue, Geoglossum cookeanum
Persistent Waxcap, Hygrocybe persistens
Blackening Waxcap, Hygrocybe conica
Like much of Britain’s uplands, the land is managed by muirburn, controlled burning of the moorland, to encourage new growth of heather, mainly Ling, which is the principal food of Red Grouse, and is also nibbled by the hardy upland sheep, which of course prefer open areas with grass to tall woody bushes. The thin ash-grey subsoil (Podsol, Russian for ash-soil) can be seen on the trackside bank.
Podsol on top of Millstone Grit, the local rock. The soil is black and slightly peaty with plant material at the top, then quickly turns to a poor subsoil with sand and fragments of rock, and then not very far down, actual bedrock.
Rowan (Mountain Ash) in full fruit
Maidenhair Spleenwort, Asplenium trichomanes, a beautiful small fern of rocks and walls
This seems to be a Dapperling; I’d have said it was Lepiota hystrix except that that’s a woodland species. Suggestions?
One of the Cladonia ground-living lichens of the ‘reindeer moss’ group.
This one might be C. portentosa, which likes acid moorland.
Dog Lichen, Peltigera canina, a lichen of sandy moorland.
A handsome crustose lichen on rock, cf. Ochrolechia.
Common Frog among the tiny cowberry bushes

Natural History

Flowery police station

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A very flowery Chiswick Police Station. Actually, it’s basically closed, at least as a real station for police and public, but the Hammersmith force camp out in it when they’re in the area. It’s going to be knocked down and redeveloped, but meanwhile, Karen Liebreich (left) of Abundance London (van, sign on the blue platform) has decorated it with a lot of army surplus camouflage scrim and a vast number of little flowers and butterflies … rather nice, I think. BTW the decorations were made by a lot of local artists, some of them presumably famous … if you’re quick you can bid for any of them!

Natural History

Kew’s beauty … unlocked at last

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I cycled to Kew, showed my card at the gate, told the cashier how nice it was to be able to arrive without booking (the lockdown booking requirement having finally been dropped), and sauntered across the lawns and through the trees of the quiet autumnal gardens, trying to recall how to distinguish two magnificent ancient tree species, the swamp cypress and the dawn redwood ………

Art, Natural History

Tara louise hughes’s marvellous insect faces

The Gunnersbury Triangle nature reserve this autumn has a new and wonderful nature trail: a series of insects’ faces by Tara Louise Hughes. Tara, when not studying art and illustration, has proven herself a capable conservation volunteer. Now, she has brightened up the reserve for children and adults with her painstakingly fire-etched close-up drawings of insects.

Her damselfly head is a study in miniature detail: the hundreds of pin-point eye-elements (ommatidia) in the insect’s large, forward-facing eyes; the precise distribution and length of the bristles on the top of the head and on the mouthparts; the accurately-observed antennae.

The Stag Beetle head is suitably fearsome, a study in armoured magnificence with interlocking chitin cases for head and thorax, and those extraordinary antler-like mandibles.

The Monarch Butterfly’s head couldn’t be more different: a study of a delicately furry head, a shy eye, and the tenderly coiled proboscis peeping out on the right.

With the Flesh Fly we’re certainly back in scary territory, the rows of stiffly corseted bristles announcing that this insect is ready for action.

The Buff-tailed Bumblebee, a mild and welcome presence in the reserve, and in gardens wherever there is a suitable supply of flowers. The furry insect seems shy under the artist’s gaze.

If not evil, the Red Wood Ant is definitely fierce and single-minded, as anyone who’s ever been bitten by one can testify. Tara’s fire-etching has brilliantly captured that take-no-prisoners energy with the insect’s smooth bullet head, businesslike antennae, and efficiently-hinged jaws. Take a careful look at those scorched textures at the top of its head.

Tara’s Tortoise Beetle shows the distinctly tortoise-like carapace from the underside, its knobbly texture skilfully burnt into the wood, the little head jutting out under the curved rim with the antennae cautiously feeling the outside world for possible danger.

Tara’s website is at https://taralouisehughes.medium.com/

Natural History

Giant polypore, Acton Green

This enormous wood-rotting (saprophytic) fungus, Meripilus giganteus, is a relatively soft bracket, and it grows very quickly. It is the fruiting body of the fungus; the rest of it consists of little feeding tubes (hyphae) in the dead wood of the treestump, which was a Hornbeam, a hardwood. The discs are attached to short stalks, and are concentrically patterned, with tiny scales over the top surface. The underside is a mass of holes or pores, hence the name; each one is the opening of a little tube where the spores grow. Millions of them fall out and blow away; presumably one or two will find a suitable treestump to grow on.

Natural History

Small china-mark moth … always by water

This pretty little moth looks white at first glance, but it isn’t, exactly. There’s a small black spot near the middle of the wing; a slightly checkered border; and a row of black marks with little blue spots near the outer edge of the hind wing. The caterpillars feed on duckweed, so the adults are always near water. This one was just by the boardwalk over the main pond at Gunnersbury Triangle.

Natural History

Dirty habits

Ah, a Comma butterfly on the path. Ew, but what’s it doing? Those are flies. Greenbottles. With red eyes. They’re buzzing around a sticky mess. Dog or Fox poo. And, yes, the Comma has its proboscis extended, it’s feeding. On the poo, by preference. No better than the flies!

Actually, quite a few species of butterfly are attracted to sticky messes on the ground; entomologists brew up their own concoctions with beer and treacle (and who knows what else) to attract Purple Emperors down from the tops of their Oak trees.

Somehow this all seems surprising, perhaps because we can’t quite believe that anything so beautifully dressed as a butterfly could have such dirty habits. But then again, being attractive and well-dressed doesn’t guarantee that humans are doing nice things, either.