Saturday 9 October 2010

Saturday 9th.October 2010

As opposed to yesterday , today was Autumn , all day long . The breaks in the sky that we were promised , they never materialized , not a single ray was seen .
With no hedgelaying today , I thought about a run out , but at the last moment decided against that , and settled for another look up on West Wickham Common for fungi . On Tuesday , I found the White-Helvella crispa in good numbers , and today even more had emerged , with groups of the fungi in places . Again today I looked for it's relation , Black-Helvella lacunosa , but again failed to find it at first . But , searching another track , I finally found good numbers of this species too . Since Tuesday , lots of the brown , leathery cup shaped fungi , Peziza badia had emerged along the sides of many of the tracks , a typical habitat of this species . A bit out of the ordinary , was this yellow Slime Mould , Flowers of Tan-Fuligo septica , on a stump on the cleared heathland area . On a Silver Birch log , I found another yellow/orange specimen , Dacrymyces stillatus , which gave a fallen log a real splash of colour .
Colour is becoming harder and harder to find by the day , but I did find a couple of flowers still in bloom :
Sowbread-Cyclamen hederifolium , differing from C.purpurascens by having a five sided throat to the flower and flowering before the leaves emerge .
With just the last few flowers still in bloom , Purple Toadflax-Linaria purpurea , even though the book says it's finished by August .
Apart from a few Bumblebees and Spiders , the only moving things were a few Meadow Grasshoppers , getting out of my way as I crossed the heathland area .

4 comments:

ShySongbird said...

A good selection of fungi again, Greenie. You certainly know where to find them!

I thought that was a type of Cyclamen as soon as I saw it, I assume it is an escapee from a garden, I don't think they usually grow in the wild do they?

Lovely shot of the Grasshopper.

Ken. said...

Hi Greenie.
Not being a great lover of Fungi, but it is always fascinating to see all the different ones. Perhaps they will grow on me. (not literally)
Nice photo's.

Greenie said...

ShySongbird ,
Sowbread-C.hederifolium is listed in my books as 'native to or commonly naturalised in the British Isles' , whereas C.purpurascens is shown as 'non native , introduced' , but like many species hybridisation probably takes place between the two . The two main differences are , Sowbread , flower first , as opposed to Cyclamen , leaf first .
Sowbread , five sided throat , Cyclamen , round throat .

Ken ,
If you keep moving , they won't .

Adam said...

Hi Ken

Thanks for IDing waxcaps, seems to be bumper autumn fungus all round.

Adam