Fungi Friday, 14th February 2020
Storm Ciara blew in on Sunday and probably washed any winter shrooms away. But I’m still spending my time with the symbiotic fungal folk found in lichens. The lichens have had a good week, heavy rain has been interspersed with some lovely winter sun.
Near where I work there are lengths of low post-and-rail fences that are covered in lichens. They’re likely to be sweet chestnut and not to be treated with any chemicals. This patch above is a joy, a mass of cladonia cup lichens with mosses and some crustose lichens smattered in between.
This is probably Xanthoria parietina which is a very common yellow lichen. I think it looks like scrambled eggs! The colours have only been very mildly edited here, it really was vibrant.
These are the fruiting bodies of the cladonia cup lichens in the previous image, far more alien-like.
These fences are close to the river Rother which was flooding the surrounding landscape in an epic manner. It’s done it twice now this year.
As you can imagine, for the mushrooms of the fungal world, this is too much water!
This is a dead alder tree that sits in the centre of the river. You can see the blue-green hue from the riverbank, the presence of lichens enjoying a sunny and moist spot to prosper in.
Next week I will actually have some 100% fungi to share!
Daniel Greenwood 
[…] Lichens were doing well in other places too. This knotty old fencing rail was making a home for these cup lichens (Cladonia). Lots of countryside fence posts are home to these lichens. […]
I lichen it a lot! 😆