Fungi -- Great Britain -- Identification; Mushrooms -- Identification
The grassland species are often simple in structure belonging in the
main to the genus _Clavulinopsis_ (see p. 170) and the now much reduced
genus _Clavaria_ (see p. 168). Although really complex, some of these
species of _Clavulinopsis_ are branched only below the soil level and
thus appear as single clubs amongst the grass. Perhaps the single club
has evolved especially to grow amongst blades of grass. _C.
corniculata_, however, is well branched and the head is tight and
compact and often flattened close to the ground. The same fungus in
woodland is more open and because of this it was thought to be a
different species to the grassland form. It is the simple club which
dominates the form of those species which grow on herbaceous debris and
grass-stems; indeed several species of _Typhula_ cause diseases of grass
particularly those of lawns where they have suffered damage because of
cold or long periods under the snow. Some of these small fungi produce a
small hard mass of fungal tissue about the size of a lupin seed (called
a sclerotium). This is a resting body from which the club-shaped almost
filament-like fruit-body later develops.
~Thelephora terrestris~ Fries
Earth-fan
_Cap_: absent. _Fruit-body_: width 20-40 mm; height 30-50 mm.
_Description_:
Fruit-body: erect, fan-shaped or effused with upturned margin, tough
but thin and fibrous, chocolate-brown or cocoa-coloured, scaly from
radiating fibrils and with fringed, pale buff or wine-coloured margin.
Gills: absent and replaced by a wrinkled or irregularly granular, dark
lilaceous grey or cocoa-coloured surface.
Flesh: brown and thin.
Spore-print: purplish brown.
Spores: medium sized, dark brown under the microscope, warted-angular
and 8-9 × 6-7 µm in size.
Cystidia: absent but basidia often filled with brown contents.
Basidia: 2-4 spored.
_Habitat_ & _Distribution_: Found on the ground in woods, especially
pine woods; also on heathland growing up vegetation and incorporating
it into the fruit-body’s shape.
_General Information_: There is some evidence to suggest that this
fungus can form mycorrhiza with pine trees under certain conditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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