Bonfire Scalycap - Pholiota highlandensis - Settle -and other fungi 13 Sept 2022.

Eco-Explorers (for families) meet at 4pm (or straight after primary school) on alternate Monday afternoons. (Ask me for more details)


This Monday 12 Sept, Led by Sally Waterson, we went on a bird quiz walk round Settle (devised by Lex Chandler for U3A) and walked through Millennium Garden (part occupied by the "pump track"). We entered though the roofed entrance and looked on the left. Then we saw this chestnut coloured shiny slimy fungus. I went home and looked it up.
This is Bonfire Scalycap- Pholiota highlandensis (formerly called Pholiota cabonarea)

Pholiotas are usually scaly. This one wasn't, although the lower stipe is slightly scaly. It was very slimy and I though it should be called slimy-cap. There were white bits at the edge of the cap that had once formed a partial veil linking it to the stem.

I came back the next day and photographed it, by which time the slime had dried up.

Pholiota highlandensis often grows on sites where there has been a fire. I wonder if the workmen who had built the new pump track had had a fire here. 

I found an excellent website describing how Pholiota highlandensis can grow in association with a moss -Polytrichum commune (Star Moss) - and other mosses that grow on bonfire sites. 

I will have to come back another day and look for more signs of charcoal and moss - the day I came, by the time I had removed the dandelions to see the fungus better, I could not see much moss.

I also found a website that says Pholiota highlandensis might be made up of seven different species, at least the ones growing in America..

 Near to it was an Ink Cap.

Ink Cap

And near-by were these conical fungi - I need to research these next!!

I looked up a definition of a pump track and Settle Town Council website says: "A pump track is for BMX, mountain bikes and off-road bikes and has rollers and berms (banked corners) to help you generate speed, so you don't need to pedal 

I then drove up to Winskill Stones (It was a brilliant sunny day and slightly fresh and calm) to look in the field where I had found The pink Waxcap or Ballerina on 11 Sept 2019. There were no fungi in that corner of the field today.

The next "First Day of the month Climate walk" be a fungus foray on 1 October in the morning.

Probably starting at 9.30am and probably setting off along Watery Lane - but do check with me first if you intend to come because it may change if I discover a better site for fungi.