Identification of the Larger Fungi

Part 1

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IDENTIFICATION OF THE LARGER FUNGI

DEDICATION

To my parents who encouraged my interests in mushrooms and toadstools and my wife who, later, was sympathetic to my studies and assisted in the production of the manuscript.

Hulton Group Keys

IDENTIFICATION OF THE LARGER FUNGI

ROY WATLING, B.Sc., Ph.D., M.I.Biol. Principal Scientific Officer, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh

Editor of series: Antony R. Kenney, M.A., B.Sc.

© 1973 R. Watling A. R. Kenney ISBN 0 7175 0595 2

First published 1973 by Hulton Educational Publications Ltd., Raans Road, Amersham, Bucks.

Reproduced and printed by photolithography and bound in Great Britain at The Pitman Press, Bath

PREFACE

This is one of a series of books intended to introduce field-biology to students, particularly the sixth form and early university student. The present work is ecologically biased in order to emphasise a rather neglected aspect of the higher fungi.

Few books on fungi have ever been designed for students. This book is aimed primarily at this level, but if the interested amateur is assisted and encouraged by this same text my hopes will have been doubly achieved. Many amateurs interested in higher fungi wish only to name their collections, or know approximately what they are before sampling them as an addition to their diet. An understanding of our commoner species at an early age will allow the ‘budding’ mycologist to tackle the much needed study of the more critical forms. Mycology is still at a descriptive stage, but it is hoped this will soon be changed and fungi of all kinds will be studied as part and parcel of courses in ecology.

It is of course quite impossible to cover all the species in such a small volume as this present one, but it is hoped that the examples which have been carefully chosen are sufficiently common throughout the country for any student to collect them in a single season. The examples, except for very few, in fact appear in the list of higher fungi found about the Kindrogan Field Centre, Perthshire, Scotland, compiled from the collections made by students attending my field course there.

The present work is arranged in three parts: the agarics are dealt with first, the non-agarics next, both with particular reference to their major habitat preferences, and lastly a catalogue of those more specialised habitats which are frequently encountered. All parts are supported at the end by lists in tabular form of those species expected to be found in any one habitat. Keys to the major groups, families and genera, are included to widen the scope of the book and place the examples chosen and illustrated in the text in their position in classification.

In the description the synonymy has been very severely pruned and only covers the commonly seen names; they are included as part of the general information under each species. In order for the student to expand unfamiliar names a list of references is added at the end of the work. The common names of the fungi, whenever possible, have been adopted from a list produced by Dr Large, the author of The Advance of the Fungi, an exciting tale of fungal parasites. The authorities for the names of the fungi described have been reduced to accord with the minimum requirements set out by the Code of Botanical Nomenclature. After each description a list of references to coloured plates is given and while some of these illustrations are not of the highest quality they are adequate, and, more important, they are widely available. Any technical terms appearing in the description are explained in the glossary, although they have been kept to a minimum; the difficulty of expressing colours has been overcome by consistently referring to one colour chart only, (a chart designed originally for the use of mycologists and available from Her Majesty’s Stationery Office).

I have not indicated the edibility of a particular species unless there is no doubt as to the edibility of it, related species and those species with which it might be easily confused. Many fungi are notoriously difficult to identify and when one has approximately 3,000 species of larger fungi in the country the task is even more difficult. It would be folly therefore to indicate edibility for all the fungi described in a book such as this; the golden rule which should be adopted is not to eat any of the fungi one collects in the woods and fields. A fault of most popular treatments is that they are biased towards the human diet and selection of species is done on this basis; in the present work selection of examples within the 270 pages has been difficult and two factors have been particularly considered to ensure that (i) representatives of all the major groups of fungi and genera have been covered and (ii) a coverage has been attempted of all the common ecological niches.

I am fully aware that the taste of a fungus may be distinctive to that species or to a group of closely related species, but it is only a spot character and the tasting of one’s finds is neither necessary nor advisable; indeed it is not used in this book. The odour, however, has been indicated whenever distinctive.

CONTENTS

Page Preface 5 Introduction 9 Where to look 9 Collecting 10 Examination 11 Microscopic examination 12 Key to major groups of Larger Fungi 21 A. Agarics and their relatives 22 Key to major genera 22 (i) Agarics of woodlands and copses 27 (a) Mycorrhizal formers 27 (b) Parasites 59 (c) Saprophytes--Wood-inhabiting or lignicolous agarics 64 (d) Saprophytes--Terrestrial agarics 78 (ii) Agarics of pastures and meadows 95 (a) Agarics of rough & hill-pastures 95 (b) Agarics of chalk-grassland & rich uplands 108 (c) Agarics of meadows and valley-bottom grasslands 114 (d) Fairy-ring formers 118 (e) Agarics of urban areas--lawn and parkland agarics 122 (f) Agarics of wasteland and hedgerows 126 B. Bracket fungi and their relatives 135 Key to major genera 135 (i) Pored and toothed fungi 140 (a) Colonisers of tree trunks, stumps and branches 140 (b) Destroyers of timber in buildings 154 (c) Colonisers of cones 158 (d) Terrestrial forms 160 (ii) Cantharelles and related fungi 162 (iii) Fairy-club fungi 166 (iv) Resupinate fungi 176 C. The Jelly fungi--Key to major groups with examples 179 D. The Stomach fungi; puff-balls and their relatives--Key to major groups with examples 186 E. Cup fungi and allies 198 F. Specialised Habitats 207 (i) Fungi of dung and straw heaps 207 (ii) Fungi of bonfire sites 216 (iii) Fungi of bogs and marshes 222 (a) Sphagnum bogs 222 (b) Alder-carrs 226 (iv) Fungi of beds of herbaceous plants 227 (v) Fungi of moss-cushions 230 (vi) Heath and mountain fungi 231 (a) Moorland fungi 231 (b) Mountain fungi & Basidiolichens 236 (vii) Sand-dune fungi 238 (viii) Subterranean fungi 243 (ix) Fungal parasites 246 G. Appendix 249 (i) Species lists of specialised habitats 249 (ii) Glossary 260 (iii) Simple experiments with Fairy-rings 264 (iv) Development of the Agaric fruit-body 266 (v) References 269 H. Index 271

Cover transparency supplied by John Markham, F. R. P. S., F. Z. S.

INTRODUCTION

The term larger fungus refers to any fungus whose study does not necessarily require more than a low-powered lens to see most of the important morphological features. Using such a term cuts across the existing scientific classification, for it includes the more obvious fungi bearing their spores on specialised reproductive cells called basidia, fig. 5, and a few of those whose spores are produced inside specialised reproductive cells called asci. The term is useful, however, even though it embraces a whole host of unrelated groups of fungi; it includes the polypores, fairy-clubs, hedgehog-fungi, puff-balls and elf-cups, as well as the more familiar mushrooms and toadstools--or puddockstools as they are often called in Scotland. Specimens of all these groups will find their way some time into the collecting baskets of the naturalist when he is out fungus-picking, along with probably a few jelly-fungi and less frequently one or two species of the rather more distantly related group, the morels. The biggest proportion of the finds, however, on any one collecting day in the autumn, when the larger fungi are in their greatest numbers, will be of the mushrooms and toadstools; these are, collectively, more correctly called the agarics.

The early botanists and pioneer mycologists of the nineteenth century recognised the fact that the fungi both large and small are ecologically connected to the herbaceous plants and trees among which they grow, but many mycologists since have tended to neglect these early observations. Although the importance of the fungi in the economy of the woodland, copse, field and marsh is well-known, mycologists and ecologists alike have been rather slow to appreciate that the fungi can be just as good indicators of soil conditions, if not better, than many other plants. Perhaps it is rash to attempt such a treatment as you find here because we know so little of the reasons why a particular fungus prefers one habitat to another. However, it is envisaged and hoped that, if a framework is provided, accurate field-notes can gradually be accumulated and many of the secrets yet to be uncovered explained.

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