Thanks to everyone who came on yesterday's midweek recording walk in Scammadale. There was a good turnout of nine, and the weather was kind once again. We walked along the River Euchar where there were some fine ash trees with an endless supply of interesting lichens, in fact we were in danger of spending all morning on the first tree. The photos below show Pertusaria pertusa,  which is made up of chunks like dice with various numbers of  dots and close by we discovered Pannaria rubiginosa.

Then we went into some Hazel woodland where we recorded the distribution of Hazel Gloves, the fungus that indicates ancient untouched Atlantic Hazelwoods, which was not previously known from this site. Thanks to everyone's sharp eyes we found a good number of specimens including the stonker shown below which I'm glad to say added a new word to Alan's vocabulary.  Another  fungi discovered was Exidia repanda (Birch Brain Fungus) on a fallen birch twig suspended from a hazel branch,  with a  jelly-like consistency of the familiar Yellow Brain Fungus, but it is less contorted (or perhaps just less brainy? )

We also found Birch Polypore, Hoof Fungus, Pink Curtain Crust,(see below) and Alan discovered some of the green-staining wood fungus Chlorociboria aeruginascens. The best fungal find was some more of the flimsy bracket fungus Plicatura crispa (see below) which had been found previously at Glen Feochan. This fungus has an eastern distribution and had not been recorded this far west at all but seems to be a constituent of Atlantic Hazelwoods  now that it's turned up in two of them. It seems the fungi of these woods have been researched a lot less than the lichens and there must be many more discoveries to be made.

As you'd expect, the Hazel woods had a rich lichen flora dominated by Lobarion lichens, and often three Lobaria species (L pulmonaria, L virens and L scrobiculata) were found growing next to each other, but we didn't find the fourth one, L amplissima.

We had plenty of opportunity to compare the smooth plum tarts of Degelia plumbea (see above) with the crusty ones of Pannaria rubiginosa, as well as with the tartless Degelia atlantica, and the quartet was completed by Pannaria conoplea which also lacks tarts.The final find was a cushion jelly lichen Collema fasciculare (see above) found by Richard. Thanks again to everyone.  Looking forward to the next walk.

 
Carl and Richard

We had a record turnout of nine people today for the midweek recording walk, despite the off-putting weather forecast. We enjoyed a bit of a weather window as the rain wasn't too bad at all, compared to how it was immediately before and after the walk. The wind was pretty strong on the tops, but we found plenty of sheltered places to hunt for things.

In the first part of the walk we saw a lot of Gorse and Hawthorn, the latter was very rich in mosses and lichens (with especially fine examples of Ramalina fastigiata and Melanelia exasperata), but there was very little on the Gorse apart from Yellow Brain Fungus (Tremella mesenterica) and Velvet Shank (Flammulina velutipes), both of which prefer dying or dead stems. We looked at the lichens on the shore including vertical rocks covered with Sea Ivory (Ramalina siliquosa) which in places had been grazed  probably by either land slugs or the Small Periwinkle which lives on the extreme upper shore and can graze in the splash zone.  Another was Dermatocarpon miniatum, a spotty brown lichen that Alan found on rocks by the shore, a good find as it is not one of the more abundant coastal lichens.

The ants found under slates were the Yellow Meadow Ant (Lasius flavus) and the Black Garden Ant (Lasius niger). The sandhoppers were Orchestia gammarellus and  Catherine's centipede was Geophilus easoni.  Sally's beetle was Nebria brevicollis, a ground beetle that's found in any kind of sheltered conditions that are not too wet and Rosy's snails were the Smooth Glass Snail (Aegopinella nitidula).

We then went into an old slate pit which was rich in bryophytes and gave us a few new vascular plants as well. Then we followed a Hawthorn-lined burn  into a mossy Birch wood which didn't have many lichens, suggesting the wood was not very ancient. It did give us Birch Polypore (Piptoporus betulinus) and what I think is Root Rot Fungus(Heterobasidium annosum - to be confirmed). There was a mystery flowering plant here, but not flowering, if you see what I mean - we will have to go back later in the year to find out what it is. There's was also a large woody gall we saw on Rowan which is called Crown Gall and is caused by Agrobacterium tumefaciens.
 

On the way back we passed a couple of Hazels which yielded several Lobarion lichens and Ramalina fraxinea, the fourth, and least common, Ramalina of the day. Just as we were about to leave the square Rosy discovered a spectacular colony of Jew's Ear (Auricularia auricula-judae) on Elder. It's not common this far north as the NBN map shows
http://data.nbn.org.uk/gridMap/gridMap.jsp? allDs=1&srchSpKey=NHMSYS0001475388 . 

On the underside of the branch with the Jew's Ear was a very decrepit bracket fungus turning green with algae.  This was really in too poor condition to identify, but it had one odd feature, black root-like things growing out of some of the pores.  I've asked around about these but so far I have been met with stunned silence.

Thanks to all for coming and spotting so many things.

Carl Farmer