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Ascocoryne cylichnium, Dalgety bay 15/01/2018

A small ascomycete pulled from a rotten log at the weekend which gave me the runaround at first.

Ascocoryne sarcoides is a frequent sight in any woodland but one disc of it's congener Ascocoryne cylichnium completely threw me. There was only one disc, which led to some keying false starts. Only working back from the fantastic spores was I able to put the other pieces in place. These spores bud off mini-spores, which is a very funky thing to do. You can see from the pics below that the images are full of these tiny spores which I had managed not to see as significant until I already knew they were.

chopped in half for  squishing

Ascus tips blued with iodine

Spores and tons of mini-spores

spores and baby-spores

Spore illustration in Dennis

Fungi of Switzerland

Spore and baby

Another nice find on the same wood was this fantastic Brachysporium masonii

Pseudovalsa lanciformis, Dalgety bay 15/01/2018

On a betula branch beside the coastal path

Ciliolarina laricina, Calais Muir Wood, 21/12/2016

A nice little fuzzy disco on Japanese Larch, listed in Ellis and Ellis under Pine but cross-referenced in the Larch section. Calais Muir wood offers trees I don't encounter much elsewhere so it's always an opportunity to see something different

Phaeosphaeria herpotrichoides, Red Moss

Once I got over the idea that the piece of herbaceous stem I had in my hand was Juncus I was able to track this down to Phaeosphaeria herpotrichoides. Should help identify its cohabiting smaller pyrenomycete too.

Tucked under the surface with ostiole exposed

Spores olivey-yellow en masse in the asci

Typical Leptosphaeria (s.l.) spore bulge

Curious - a stretched ascus?

Propolis farinosa at Cullaloe LNR

This lovely species fills up holes in decorticating bark. In this case on Salix, though in Ellis & Ellis it can be found in the pluriverous fungi section

Rush Disco

Curiously when you google Rush Disco all you get are matches to the Canadian rock band. So here are some images of Rush Disco Lachnum apalum and Rush's classic tune Tom Sawyer.

Lachum apalum (Dasyscyphus apalus):

Rush, Tom Sawyer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrhnhXHVSQg

Snowy Disco

Who doesn't love a disco? Lachnum virgineum from Mossmorran

 

and under the lens ...

note the blue inoperculate ascus tips in Melzer's

and septate, granular hairs

Bryoparasitic Pezizales

A cracking site on Pezizas that love the bryophytes ...

http://www.octospora.de/


And to fill out the linka bit - a Fench ascomycete site ...

 AscoFrance

Downtown Peziza

I don't really have a good way of dealing with ascomycetes, but this fantastic cup on the Bank of Scotland building in Dunfermline deserves a spot. I am mre or less assuming it is Peziza cerea, or Cellar Cup, despite making no micro investigations whatsoever.

Melzer's versus Lugol's

Intrigued by the persistence of lichenologists to prefer Lugol's over Melzer's , I uncovered the following references:

http://www.namyco.org/docs/Melzer__Lugo.pdf

http://www.gbif-mycology.de/HostedSites/Baral/IodineReaction.htm

It seems that while Melzer's can give better reactions in the right conditions it also can mask some reactions because of one ingredient of its cocktail (I'm looking at you, chloral hydrate).

Since I'm a bit hamfisted wen it comes to the chemical reagent I like to throw Melzer's on things, but I may have to refine my inspection techniques if I'm going to mess around with ascos, including lichenised ones.

Hypocrea pulvinata - Ochre Cushion

Chopped from the top of a Piptoporus betulinus, I thought I wouldn't get far with this asco, but it seems like a "weel-kent face". It even has an English name - Ochre Cushion. Maybe the only Asco you'll ever see on here. Unless I find another Scarlet Elfcup that is.