NPMS and toadstools - large and tiny

 In a post a couple of years ago I mentioned that I survey plots for a scheme called  the NPMS (the National Plant Monitoring Scheme).  You can read more about it on their website here. Ideally, the plots are surveyed every year, twice a year, and I have endeavoured to do that for the 8 years  since the scheme started.  There are 1,207 squares being monitored and  I was rather surprised to find that of the hundreds of volunteer surveyors only 40 have manged to send in data every year.  As I was one of them, I even got a mention in the 2022 Annual Report.  Probably the only bit of botanical fame I will ever have!

On my visit to my plot up on Craggan (a local hill) there were a few fungi that caught my eye.  I don't have names for them but could admire them, none the less.  The first was a tiny toadstool with frilly points:

The others that caught my eye were much bigger and more colourful.  The first one was  about 4 cm across and has really wide gills.  Maybe a waxcap?

The second group were much bigger. That's my boot for scale.

 Most of the fungi we notice have those big fruiting bodies we call mushrooms or toadstools.  The majority of the fungus is underground in a web called the mycelium.  The fruiting bodies are produced  to manufacture and distribute their spores.

In the last photo you can see there is a rock with white patches.  Those white patches are lichens.  It might surprise you to know that they are also fungi.  Lichens are fungi which also have another organism inside, usually an alga.  Lichens often have different fruiting bodies called apothecia which look like little jam tarts or wine gums growing on the lichen and have the job of manufacturing spores. However, there are some lichens which actually grow tiny toadstools and I spotted one on a rock on my way home.

This interesting lichen is only about 5cm across and looks like a green crust with some pinkish blobs.  It gets more interesting as you get closer and look at those pink blobs.

The pink blobs are the heads of teeny tiny mushrooms just a few millimetres tall!  They also have the job of producing spores. Once you have your eye in, this lichen (Baeomyces rufus) is quite common locally in shady dampish woodland.

Finally, from rather pleasing facets of nature, to a not so pleasant one from my garden.  You may have read in previous posts that I have the misfortune to have New Zealand Flatworms in my garden and I wage a constant war of attrition against them as they eat earthworms almost to the point of  extinction.  I shifted a pile of fencing planks and found plenty of NZ flatworms underneath and dozens of their eggs, which look like shiny blackcurrants.  Each egg has several baby worms inside.  One had just been laid and I think the white patch on the flatworm must be its egg laying opening as I have not seen this before (and believe me, I have seen hundreds of flatworms!).

A NZ flatworm and a fresh egg

Loch Vaa and Lochain Uvie

Last week I joined some other keen botanists and went to Loch Vaa to look for some specific plants that are not found much locally. Ian Green, who is the BSBI recorder for vice-county 95 (Moray) led the walk as he knew what we were looking for, whereas the rest of us had not even heard of the plants!

Loch Vaa  is North of Aviemore and is just behind Laggantygown Cemetery so there is convenient car parking. It was a stunningly sunny day and the loch was quite low, exposing a stony shore.

Loch Vaa

The water was crystal clear and there were shoals of small fishes.

   There were two plants that we were looking for, both related to a more common species.  The first was a hybrid Spearwort.  Lesser Spearwort (Ranunculus flammula) has a flower like a buttercup but grows in damp or wet areas and has thin leaves.

Lesser Spearwort with narrow leaves (the broad leaves belong to the pondweed)

The plant we were looking for was a hybrid - a cross between  Lesser Spearwort and Creeping Spearwort with the unwieldy name of Ranunculus x levenensis.  But Creeping Spearwort  is an extremely rare plant and does not grow in Moray.  So how did the hybrid get here?  The best explanation is that it was brought in on the feet of visiting waterfowl.  As it roots readily from the stem, this would help it get established.  We found quite a few plants but it is maybe not the most impressive sight .

Hybrid Spearwort

In fact, most of the plants we concentrated on were rather small.  The next on the list was Small Water-pepper (Persicaria minor),  which prefers to grow in more southerly areas and Loch Vaa is the farthest North that it has been found.

Small Water-pepper

It is like Redshank (Persicaria maculosa) which is much bigger and sometimes has a black blotch on the leaves.  It is very common and I have seen it growing at the side of the pavement in Newtonmore Main Street.  I was quite surprised to find I don't have a photo of it!

 Another plant I had not seen before was Marsh Speedwell (Veronica scutellata).   This one had blue flowers but they can be pink or white.

Marsh Speedwell

Inspired by the trip, I thought I would visit Lochain Uvie (just at the base of Creag Dubh) to see if I could find the same plants, as when the loch is low, there is a stony bit of shore. 

Lochain Uvie looking West

Lochain Uvie with Creag Dubh in the background.

I did not find the two rarities as the stony bit was covered in grass.  But there were other compensations. In a dried out boggy area I found a lot of Great Sundew (Drosera anglica).  "Great " is a bit of an exaggeration as it is tiny!  It is an insectivorous plant and catches insects on its sticky hairs.  The leaves are longer and more spoonlike than its even smaller relative, Round-leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia).

Great Sundew

It does have flowers but they were still in bud.

Another bog plant had finished flowering but its seeds were a bright, bright orange.

Bog Asphodel

And finally, there were plenty of grasshoppers pinging about when you walked through the grass. So a very pleasant trip even if I did not find the rarities.

A Yellow Lichen

Dry stone walls are a great place to look for lichens.  Usually, I pick one that is on the moor but whilst waiting in Kingussie, I looked at the one by the Duke of Gordon Hotel.

One of the capstones stood out from the rest, as it was the only one with patches of yellow.

The different stone                                  With a ruler marked in cm             Lichen at the top, moss underneath

Looking more closely, there are round orange fruiting bodies (apothecia) which is where the lichen produces spores. I collected one by chipping it off and folding it into a post-it note so I didn't lose it.

A tiny apothecium - about 0.5mm

I also added some  small drops of chemicals. Bleach did not change colour but potassium hydroxide gave an immediate purple colour. When I got home, I sliced that tiny orange apothecium, trying to get a thin slice so the light of my microscope would shine through it.

Here is the slice, and the tiny circles are the spores which are clustered in sacs called asci.  To see the shapes better, you add a few more chemicals  - in this case some fountain pen ink!

Here is a picture of one of the spores showing its odd structure.

A lichen spore - about 12 thousandths of a millimetre long

It is like a dumbbell and that helped with the identification as different lichens have different looking spores.  I think the lichen is called Caloplaca flavovirescens (no common name, I'm afraid).  It is not common round here as it likes a basic (alkaline) rock and most of our rocks are acid.  But that one capstone must be different.