Southern Marsh Orchids

Southern Marsh Orchids

Thursday 28 January 2016

A Stroll in the Woods

This morning, before the rain arrived, I paid a quick visit to a wooded valley near Llwydcoed. I was looking for microfungi and found several, most of which remain to be identified. One of the handful I I knew was Glyphium elatum.

Glyphium elatum on a dead Sallow branch.


One of the non fungi was the distinctive alga Phytopeltis arundinacea, microscope shots of which I have previously posted on this site. This time it was on ivy leaves.

Hundreds of tiny colonies of the alga, Phycopeltis arundinacea discolouring an Ivy leaf.


I was extremely pleased to find this Green Elf Cup (Chlorocyboria aeruginascens) growing on a rotting Ash trunk. I've seen it on this particular trunk a couple of years ago, but this time the cups were in prime condition

Green Elf-cup

I also came across some of that or another Colletotrichum (Anthracnose), as featured in my previous post, this time forming patches on the surface of an ivy leaf. I'll post more about this when I've looked further into it. Thanks again to Howard and George for pointing me in the right direction.

Patches of Presumed Colletotrichum on an Ivy leaf

5 comments:

  1. Lovely to see the photo of the gren elf cup.

    I've seen that orange alga on ivy leaves a couple of times recently (in woodland) - I must check some under the microscope to make sure it's not the other species which looks similar.

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  2. Green Elf-cup is a stunning thing, but easily overlooked. I collected one of the cups yesterday, to examine the spores, so I can confirm that it is indeed C. aeruginascens.

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  3. Hi there. Myself and the folks from the Glamorgan Fungi page on Facebook are really keen to find some green elf cups. Are you able to provide a more precise location please? Happy to provide my email if you'd prefer not to post it here.

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    1. yo i'm also glam' fungus group,john sztucki,and as annie says,be nice to have location to be able take looksee,i live in merthyr and travel that way regular so easy enough for me if knew where, by the way nice site

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    2. Hello both. I can give you a map ref, but I would rather not post it here, in full view. My email is grizmoths at gmail dot com, if you want to contact me.

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