Fungi at Black Hill, Embsay - Barden Road

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Here is the view from Black Hill 
(or Black Park) near Embsay
 - Are we looking at smoke from
bonfire night fireworks kept 
here by the temperature inversion?

6 November: It's the first Wednesday of the Month and the Craven branch of the Mid Yorkshire Fungus Group are out again - this month looking for waxcaps.

Look at that Waxcap over there!!

How are your olefactory skills?
 Smell (and imagination)  plays a big part.

This yellow wax cap is called Hygrocybe quieta and its English name is The Oily Waxcap
It smells of a greasy garage.
It is interesting that its namesake Lactarius quieta also has an oily smell.

Here it is growing in situe - amongst the Common Bent-grass and Springy Turf-moss

Peter spots this (reputedly rare)  "Pink Waxcap" or Ballerina"  - not very pink today but definitely the right shape

Parrot Waxcap

Heath Waxcap

I am delighted to learn the difference between Parrot Waxcap H psittasina (left) and Heath Waxcap   H laeta (right)
(and ashamed that I did not know the real difference before.).
They are both colourful and have slimy caps and stipes, and change colour slightly.
I used to think that Parrot Waxcap  was green at some stage in its life and Heath Waxcap  was orangey all the time.  But as you can see   H. laeta (on the right) can be a bit greenish too.

The difference?

1. If you look at the edge of the gills with a handlens you can see a translucent slimy margin to the gills of H laeta. 
This is not present in H psittasina. 

2. H laeta gills are decurrent. H psittasina gills are only adnate.

Both are supposed to be edible.

This is an interesting earth-tongue - I hope Archie will identify it.

I expect you know what this is

This, they tell me is H. aurantiosplendens.

Here is a youtube clip of us discussing whether it really is H aurantiosplendsens

And this is Cedarwood Waxcap - smells like pencil shavings.  Hygrocybe russociriacea

Peter brings some "perfume" chemicals. Iso E Super is an artificial perfume that smell s a  bit like Hygrocybe russo coriacea

Cordyceps militaris growing out of a dead chrysalis

Let's have a look at these fungi

We  find a Fairy Ring of Blewits

Closer - the Blewits are in the foreground

I also found Snowy Waxcap, Meadow Waxcap and Conical (Blackening Waxcap) and  Honey Waxcap and Scarlet Waxcap - so that makes eleven species of Waxcap.  


We'll be meeting again in a month's time in the first Wednesday of December.

On the 9th of November I will be at Whitby at the Yorkshire Naturalists Union  (YNU) AGM, listening to a talk on Seaweeds by Jane Pottas