Welcome to the refreshed Scottish Fungi website. Note that some pages are still in the process of being formatted to the new design.
Post date: Feb 13, 2011 6:27:02 PM
The Chatelherault foray represents a watershed for the Clyde and Argyll Fungus Group; attended by only four people, one of whom had to leave early in the afternoon, it was the last of our small, intimate forays in the 2010 season. Subsequent events would attract an average of over twenty forayers and it will be interesting to see if such encouraging numbers persist into next year.
What a strange foray this was! Graeme and I, independently familiar with the country park from visits going back over twenty years, agreed that the remorselessly dry conditions meant that the place never really got into second gear on this occasion. We started with a short climb to a mossy bank under limes near the ancient Cadzow Castle; it was here that Graeme had found great swathes of Horn of Plenty on previous forays, but today the moss was brittle, crisped by the sun, and there was no sign of the Craterellus. A few isolated fruitbodies of common species kept the scoreboard ticking over, but it was difficult to shrug off the pessimism that attends sub-optimal fruiting conditions. As we pressed on through hazel, willow and beech things began to improve, almost imperceptibly at first, but lignicolous saprotrophs began to carry the day. First up was a beautiful example of the Common Eyelash Fungus found by Graeme, who also came up with Chlorociboria aeruginascens in its seldom-seen full turquoise fruiting glory! A handsome brace of uncommon shield-caps cheered us up no end; Pluteus romellii was its usual spectacular self with its date-brown cap and bright yellow stem, and only a couple of metres away on another stump we spotted the magnificent P. umbrosus, for which there are only three Scottish records on the FRDBI!
Next up came the ancient Cadzow Oaks. Legend has it that these were planted in honour of Robert the Bruce shortly after his exploits at Bannockburn in 1314, although modern evidence suggests they are probably a century or so younger than this. Nevertheless they would certainly have already been 150 years old when Mary Queen of Scots wandered among them during the period of her reign when she resided at Cadzow Castle for a time! I was particularly excited as I was hoping our little party would be the first to record Old Man of the Woods here since it was last found by Robert Hannah Johnstone in 1952. I had deliberately chosen the date for this foray from an examination of the mean dates of several Cadzow records for the species going back to 1906.
Imagine my gloom when Graeme told me that only 5% of the ancient oaks remain. Huge stumps were everywhere. It seems that some genius had decided to fell them in the early 1950's to make way for... spruce! The river gorge, which would have probably have been a favoured location for the Strobilomyces when other Scottish sites are considered, had been completely cleared of oak and the felling date co-incided with its last record. We would probably never find the Old Man of the Woods here again. Sad.
Fortunately Alison lifted our spirits by finding Collybia fusipes at the base of one of the few remaining live oaks. I was delighted - it was the first time I have seen this fungus in Scotland where it is only known from seven locations (my only previous record of it was south of the border growing similarly at the base of mature Quercus robur near Southwaite in Cumbria). Shortly after we left the oaks and proceeded into the conifer plantation Sam had to leave us, a pity really as he missed most of the best bits of the day! However, before he left he did come up with arguably the most strikingly beautiful find of the day - the glorious yellow and orange Pholiota flammans, growing on fallen softwood trunks. Shortly after this Graeme spotted a Cauliflower Fungus growing in needles under spruce. It was only last year that I had seen Sparassis with Picea for the first time, on that occasion in a Galloway forest. Graeme was startled that Sparassis would occur at Chatelherault for which it is a first record, indeed it appears to be a first for Lanarkshire!
As the afternoon progressed, Alison found a lovely example of Ramaria stricta while Graeme, playing his usual captain's innings, came up with splendid displays of Coprinellus disseminatus and Gymnopilus junonius, as well as Nectria episphaeria growing contentedly on Hypoxylon fragiforme. Not content with this he then produced a 5th Scottish record for Crepidotus calolepis, a 3rd Scottish record for Lepiota castanea and an 8th Scottish record for Marasmius cohaerens, which looks rather like a pallid M. alliaceus but entirely lacks any odour of garlic. I suppose my biggest contribution to the day was finding two healthy populations under spruce of an Inocybe which was for many years known as I. pudica. A compact, handsome member of the red-staining tribe of Inocybes it is now known by an earlier taxonomic name, I. whitei, in honour of our great Scottish mycological ancestor Francis Buchanan White who found the type specimen just outside Perth in Victorian times. Other finds, such as Dog Stinkhorn (Mutinus caninus) and Russula queletii, which might have received an honourable mention elsewhere do not really merit it here as they are rather common at Chatelherault.
When I processed the data for this foray my jaw dropped when the final statistics emerged; 109 species including 31 new to Lanarkshire! Not bad for a place that wasn't firing on all cylinders! The ectomycorrhizal fungi had failed almost entirely, with less than a double-handful of Russulaceae and just one Amanita - the Fly Agaric! Imagine - no Blushers! Dozens of other species (indeed whole genera) were conspicuous by their absence - you normally get sick of recording the likes of Lepista flaccida, but not on this day!
The time will come when conditions are optimal and we catch Chatelherault just right... I reckon we will approach 200 species in a day which will be comparable to the very best sites in Hampshire! I can't wait for our next visit to this jewel in our crown.
A full list of species for the Chatelherault foray has been uploaded into a folder under "Files" on this site.