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