{"id":2657,"date":"2016-07-08T09:22:15","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T09:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/?p=2657"},"modified":"2016-07-08T09:22:15","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T09:22:15","slug":"summer-fungi-and-great-crested-newts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/?p=2657","title":{"rendered":"Summer Fungi and Great Crested Newts"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a wooded area at Ackworth, there is a fallen log, about 70cm thick, which has been lying on the ground for several years. About two weeks ago, I lifted a piece of bark from the log as I helped young students to search for centipedes and millipedes and I was surprised to find two great-crested newts beneath the bark. There are plenty of other spaces on the log, beneath bark and in cavities, where there may be other newts, so I will be asking the gardeners to leave the log in place.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Colin Booker and I had a look at the log and we found a couple of interesting fungi.<\/p>\n

\"Coprinellus

Coprinellus species<\/p><\/div>\n

The first one is a Coprinellus species, a small ink-cap. We think it is Coprinellus micacea (Glistening Ink-Cap) or Coprinellus xanthothrix but I’ve read that a microscopic examination of the spores is needed to separate the two.\u00a0\u00a0 Coprinellus xanthothrix is the rarer of the two species. By this morning, as is normal for an ink-cap, the cap of the fungus had liquefied.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Dead

Dead Man’s Fingers (Xylaria Polymorpha)<\/p><\/div>\n

Our identification for the second fungus is a little more certain. We think this is Xylaria polymorpha, which is commonly known as Dead Man’s Fingers.<\/p>\n

\"Dead

Dead Man’s Fingers (Xylaria polymorpha)<\/p><\/div>\n

I believe this species, as its name suggests, is quite variable in shape and colour. I expect it to darken as it ages and I will check on\u00a0this in the next few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a wooded area at Ackworth, there is a fallen log, about 70cm thick, which has been lying on the ground for several years. About two weeks ago, I lifted a piece of bark from the log as I helped … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2661,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions\/2661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakefieldnaturalists.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}