Copythorne Common
Sat 28 Apr 2007
Field event ID HF0703
OS Grid areas: SU3015 SU3014
Weather: The ground continued to be extremely dry and one group member had recorded a total of 8mm of rain for the month of April in his home in the New Forest.
Report: Despite the dry conditions there was a good turnout of members and even if the fungi were not prolific we had enjoyable company for the day. With only a few fresh fruitbodies to be seen there was great excitement at finding the first agaric of the day even if it was an old friend, in fact I cannot recall Laccaria laccata (The Deceiver) receiving such attention before! Curiously there was also a clump of four, soon to erupt, eggs of Phallus impudicus looking very fresh. Contrary to normal group behaviour we did sacrifice one egg for our new member to taste the broccoli stalk flavoured kernel, at which point someone did suggest that this habit was in danger of becoming a group initiation right!. Jean-Paul called us over to look at several fruitbodies of Pleurotus ostreatus (Oyster) growing on some stacked pine logs, a substrate which we also noted last spring. Although unusual, the British Checklist emphasises in bold that is does occur on conifers. Near the end of the day on our way back to the cars Jean-Paul spotted two more agarics. The first was Strobilurus tenacellus (Pinecone Cap), a spring species which grows on a buried pine cones, and the second Parasola plicatilis (The Parasol). The major revision of Coprinus species means that this species and it's look alikes are now included in a new genus called Parasola which perhaps(?) will be an easy name to remember for once. Peter was using his new macro lens and provided us with some small specimens on fallen twigs to try out. One of these Graphium calicioides was only a 1mm hairlike structure with a blob on the end, definitely one for the hand lens. Alan took away a specimen off a pine log and later confirmed his thoughts that this was the third specimen of Exidia saccharina from the New Forest area, one of only two confirmed sites outside of Scotland for this species. It is discussed in Field Mycology last July along with a photograph by Sue. Let us hope next weeks site at Emer bog will still have a 'bog' to foray.
Species list: Annulohypoxylon multiforme, Botryobasidium subcoronatum, Byssomerulius corium, Chlorociboria aeruginascens, Daedaleopsis confragosa, Exidia saccharina, Exophiala calicioides, Fuscoporia ferrea, Ganoderma australe, Gloniopsis praelonga, Helvella leucomelaena, Heterobasidion annosum, Hymenochaete rubiginosa, Kuehneola uredinis, Laccaria laccata, Lenzites betulina, Mitrula paludosa, Parasola plicatilis, Peniophora incarnata, Peniophora quercina, Phallus impudicus var. impudicus, Phanerochaete sordida, Piptoporus betulinus, Pleurotus ostreatus, Polyporus squamosus, Resupinatus applicatus, Reticularia lycoperdon, Rhopographus filicinus, Skeletocutis lenis, Stereum gausapatum, Stereum hirsutum, Strobilurus tenacellus, Tremella mesenterica, Trichaptum abietinum, Trichoderma pulvinatum, Trochila ilicina, Xylaria hypoxylon