Memories of 2009 - Rampant Russulaceae!

Dick Peebles reflects on 2009 - year of the Russulaceae!

As we all settle down after the festive season and a taste of "proper" winter it is fun to reflect upon the year we have just enjoyed - for me one of the best ever. An abiding memory is of the great eruption of Russula and Lactarius species which occurred in central and southern Scotland during August. Species which are normally frequent became abundant, and rarities became frequent. Never before have I seen so many examples of Russula delica, and the group which contains R. foetens, R. subfoetens and R. grata was apparently ubiquitously present!

Russula risigallina showed up in a few oakwood locations as the month began, and then we were treated to a spectacular display of Russula olivacea, R. farinipes and R. pseudointegra; this last producing a scarlet explosion of hundreds of fruitbodies on clay beneath the ancient oaks of Culcreuch, Fintry, which will be imprinted on my memory for the rest of my life. It was pleasant to record the first Ayrshire example of Russula adusta for over a century, smelling of wine casks just like it should; I note that most Scottish records for this species are from pinewoods, but these ones were happily at home under oak just like many of their counterparts in southern England. As August drew to a close a visit to the extensive pine plantations in Strathearn near Auchterarder demonstrated the close links between these forests and those much further north, particularly where Vaccinium formed the under-storey: Russula vinosa and Russula paludosa, together with Lactarius musteus and a host of Suillus, Boletus and Cantharellus species as well as Sparassis crispa and Tapinella atrotomentosa were present; just 45 minutes from Glasgow it felt like having Speyside on your doorstep! Nor was Lactarius musteus the only milk-cap to provide pleasure; the exquisitely beautiful Lactarius volemus showed well from July onwards, primarily in the old oakwoods of Dunbartonshire and Argyll though this is scarcely surprising as this region appears to be a British stronghold for the species. Of much greater interest was its occurrance in two separate locations under oak in the Carron Glen near Denny - a new record for the area. This same glen also provided a spectacular display of Lactarius pyrogalus under hazel. Here, as elsewhere, milk-caps were not eclipsed by the abundance of their relatives, the brittlegills, but worthy of special mention is Lactarius pallidus which trooped under beech in numbers quite unprecedented in my experience.

The rarest of the Russulaceae that I encountered during 2009 was a specimen which grew solitary on moss beneath beech near Strathaven, Lanarkshire. It resembled R. cyanoxantha in its size and in the flexibility of its pale gills, but the beautiful uniformly-coloured dark purple cap and the rock-hard stem, flushed with a pretty lilac colour from top to bottom told me I was looking at a species I had never seen before. At the time I thought its characteristics so distinctive that I should have little trouble in identifying it in my many reference books so I left it in situ, gills down. Back at the ranch everything pointed to Russula langei, until I consulted the FRDBI. Whoa! only 28 records! A scan of the NBN Gateway confirmed that almost all of these finds were in West Kent and East Sussex. It is amazing how sheer scarcity invariably serves to erode one's confidence and magnify any element of doubt. Nevertheless, Roy had recorded it under beech at Dawyck in 2002, and there were three records from Northern Ireland, also including one from under beech. I would return to Strathaven and recover the specimen for proper analysis. Alas, events conspired to deny me the opportunity.

As luck would have it, some time later I found another specimen, this one near Darvel in Ayrshire and again growing solitary under beech. There would be no mistake this time, and I communicated news of my find to Roy. He was just about to head off to Andalucia, but suggested I take a spore print and dry the specimen and he would identify it on his return. It yielded an excellent print and dried successfully on my radiator. Then came black Monday.

I have a cleaner, Aleksandra, an elderly lady from Poland. She cleans my flat on Monday afternoons. On the rare occasions that I am present at the same time conversation is limited. My Polish extends to "kurka" and "prawdziwki" (chanterelle and cep respectively) together with a smattering of swearwords inadvertently absorbed through exposure to a frequently expressive Polish workforce, rather like the pirate's parrot which is capable of embarrassing the vicar. Aleksandra's English is marginally more evolved. A typical exchange might include "eez rrabbish?" meaning, "do I throw this out?" or, by way of variety, "eez no rrabbish?" meaning, "do I spare this item from the terrible fate, via the refuse chute, of an ignominious end in a communal skip behind locked doors five floors below us?". On the afternoon of Black Monday I became aware of the fact that, by leaving my spore print and the dried russula on the counter adjacent to the cooker, I had left Aleksandra to grapple, unaided, with the binary possibilities of the "rrabbish" question. Unable to intervene, I dismissed the thought as unproductive.

Incredibly, within a week, my impending gastric ulcer was relieved by the discovery of a third solitary Russula of the same type, again growing beneath beech, this one at Uplawmoor in East Renfrewshire. This time the specimen was older and softer, so it went straight onto the radiator. Perhaps Roy could work his magic without a spore print. It was not to be. Overnight a million, million maggots erupted forth from the destroyed fruitbody, those that had not perished through dehydration spreading like a writhing pool across the kitchen floor. I can actually remember smiling through my disappointment. It was Monday morning, and in just a few hours an old lady from Poland would finally learn the difference between rrabbish and no rrabbish. Sad to relate, my accursed conscience got the better of me, and I cleaned the putrid mess before setting off for work. Ah, well, maybe next year...

Anyway, as a result of the rampant Russulaceae, and many other families of fungi which fruited so well during 2009, I reached the milestone of 1,000 records by mid-August for the first time ever, a platform which would eventually lead to a personal best of over 4,000 fungal records for the entire season. How did everybody else get on?