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Post date: Feb 13, 2011 6:31:28 PM
It was immensely gratifying that this pretty Glasgow park attracted 28 eager forayers, and although the attendance was swollen significantly by the presence of the Glasgow Natural History Society I am delighted to say that many of them have now joined the CAFG and attended subsequent forays. It should be said that the foray leader, Robin "Indiana" Jones, had done a good job of advertising the event, and let's not underestimate the effect of the magnetic Jones personality! It was also nice to see one or two familiar faces in the crowd, including Maree Morrison, veteran of the earlier Glen Croe campaign, and Keith Cohen, leader of the Fife Fungus Interest Group.
In the week or so prior to this foray I had been leading walks in the Highlands; Poolewe and Loch Maree, Arisaig, Loch Awe and the ancient Caledonian pinewoods around Loch Tulla. Within minutes of the start of our foray in Rouken Glen it became obvious that the fungal "flora" here would be entirely different. As the records started to flow in - Lepista sordida, Chlorophyllum rhacodes, Clitocybe geotropa, Collybia erythropus, Melanoleuca polioleuca - I was reminded that the fungal population of Glasgow had less in common with Argyll (40 miles away) than it did with Surrey (400 miles away). As far as the fungi are concerned, Glasgow is in England! What a privilege it is to live in an area which has such diversity in such close proximity! This sense of privilege and wonder intensified as the day progressed with exciting finds continually eclipsing exciting finds!
Rouken Glen Park falls within Vice-County 76 (Renfrewshire), and anyone perusing the species list on the FRDBI for this VC might dispute my contention that the area is fungally rich. I would counter with the fact that among the 79 species recorded on our foray, an incredible 42 of them - over 50% - were new to the VC, an extaordinary proportion which tells us that although plenty of mycological work has been carried out in the area over the past 200 years very few people hitherto have bothered their arse about sharing records of their findings. Come on boys and girls, we have work to do!
If one had to pick a candidate for best fungal find of the day it would be a tough job. Elsewhere such species as Hygrocybe calyptriformis, Tricholoma columbetta, Pluteus salicinus, Russula farinipes or Gymnopilus junonius might have been contenders - but these are actually pretty common around Glasgow. Gary Nixon came up with a couple of front-runners early in the foray with Agaricus augustus (the beautiful - and delicious! "Prince" mushroom) and a nice example of the small, white oyster mushroom species Pleurotus pulmonarius. Honourable mentions must go to Lexi Allen for Collybia distorta, and Gillian Smart, who came up with a lovely large cluster of Lentinellus cochleatus with its characteristic aroma of anise. It looked for a long time as though the day's best find would be Bill Porterfield's beautiful Veiled Oyster, Pleurotus dryinus, a distinctly southern taxon seldom recorded in Scotland. However, there was no way Keith Cohen was going to take this lying down! Firstly he came up with Macrotyphula fistulosa, the Pipe Club, the Scottish Fungi Hub's "Fungus of the Month" for October as well as a first for the Glasgow area (and for me - I must be blind!), and then he produced a beautiful small, dark brown Lactarius which Robin could recall from his early foraying days in the Black Country and identified by its former names of L.serifluus and L.cimicarius.
To his dismay the name has changed again and now it is known as Lactarius subumbonatus. The first Scottish find of this species was at Westerness back in 1984 by our very own Alan Silverside, with subsequent finds in south-east Scotland at Mellerstain by David Mitchel and at Binning Wood by El Presidente himself, Roy Watling. This makes Keith's find only the fourth ever in Scotland - terrific! In the ordinary course of events this record should have carried the day, but as the saying goes you can't keep a good man down...
With the very last find of the day, Robin "Indiana" Jones took the silverware! Spotting a lone hornbeam at some distance from our path he set out on a mission to see if he could find Lactarius circellatus or perhaps Leccinum pseudoscabrum. Shortly an exclamation of joy and a beaming smile announced that he had located the former, and thereby another new record for the Glasgow area. Known from a handful of locations around the country, it is not quite as scarce as Lactarius subumbonatus and may even turn out to be quite common wherever hornbeams are found, but what distinguishes this find from the others is that Indy deliberately set out to look for it!
The following day Indy was leading another foray, this one at Springburn Park on behalf of Glasgow Parks. Originally I had no intention of joining this one, believing the venue to be a small, ornamental park in an unsalubrious area. However, inspired by the brilliant foray at Rouken Glen I decided to tag along and I am ever so glad that I did! The area is actually quiet and pleasant, and the park itself well-stocked with beech, oak, birch, lime, pine and larch with stands of some antiquity and (as it transpired) considerable fungal fecundity. So, with another good crowd in tow, we set off on a further expedition which would soon reinforce the growing notion that Glasgow is in England, at least as far as the fungi are concerned. As at Rouken Glen there were pleasant surprises aplenty, including Hebeloma sinapizans (complete with a perfect wick hanging into the hollow stem when split lengthwise) and a quite indecent quantity of perfect, firm ceps under the beech trees. Evidently the local Italian and Polish communities were as inclined to eschew the park's potential through misplaced empirical prejudice as I had been! Many of the species found so recently at Rouken Glen would manifest themselves as the day unfolded; Lepista sordida, Pholiota gummosa, Pholiota alnicola, Russula farinipes, etc. but the day would be remembered for a string of records new to Glasgow: firstly a superb example of Spiny Puffball (Lycoperdon echinatum), then Russula velenovskyi, the beautifully coloured Mycena rosea, the abundant Parasola conopilus (only the fourth record for Scotland) and the striking Redlead Roundhead, Stropharia aurantiaca, growing happily among woodchips under larch (again only the 4th Scottish record). Somehow this little park managed to give us a total of 65 species, with 19 of these new to VC77 Lanarkshire. Incredible!
I can assure you that the irony of my recent move from central Glasgow to Balfron for its "better fungi" has not been lost on me!
Dick Peebles, 2010