Green Wood-cup

Two mildly exciting things happened today.

First an email from the BBC to say that the image I blipped on 21st September of 'cladonia 'fimbrata' should appear on Autumnwatch tonight.

Second, when I took the spaniel for a late walk this afternoon I found these Green Wood-cup fungi. They are tiny, the largest is only about 3 mm across. They start off cup-shaped (see left hand side) and then flatten to a disc as they age. The fungus growns on fallen branches of deciduous trees, especially oak. The mycelium grows through the wood and stains it blue-green (you can see the staining in the middle foreground). Its quite common to find pieces of the the stained wood but I've not seen the fruiting bodies like this very often. The infected wood is called 'green oak' and it was used in creating Tunbridge Ware a kind of marquetry using pieces of wood in different colours to decorate wooden boxes. The bright blue-green colour of the fungi is quite astonishing especially when you see it against the orangey-brown of the fallen leaves. A nice find to bring my total species list in this one area of common to 60 in five weeks.