Split-gill

After a cool grey start to the day, the prospect of sunshine encouraged Pete and I to visit East Holmes, a flood meadow in the Nene valley. We're currently writing up the John Clare Countryside Project surveys, and I realised that I had no images of this area. Sadly, by the time we arrived at the site the sunshine had disappeared!

I thought we wouldn't be there long, but, as usual, we found lost to interest us including a wonderful display of Split-gill on a decaying willow trunk. The mushroom resembles undulating waves of tightly packed corals or loose Chinese fan - most beautiful from underneath. Thank goodness for flip screens!

The grassland had been cattle grazed at some point in late summer or autumn, and the cattle dung also proved a fertile hunting ground. Some  whitish dew-covered fruiting bodies remain unidentified, although I am currently wondering whether they could be juvenile Dung Bird's-nest which I've never seen so I will have to make a return visit. 

When I viewed my images on the computer I realised I'd also captured lots of Dung Cannon in various stages of development - I hadn't noticed them at all in the poor light. I need to go back with a macro lens to try and get some good shots of them.. 

This Dung Cannon is unique in that it adheres its spores to vegetation, so as to be eaten by grazing animals. It then passes through the animals' digestive systems and grows in their faeces. Although these fungi are tiny, they can shoot their sporangium, containing their spores, up to 2 m (6.6 ft) away. Due to an increase of pressure in the vesicle, the sporangium can accelerate 0–45 mph in the first millimeter of its flight, which corresponds to an acceleration of an incredible 20000 g. Using a mucus-like substance found in the vesicle of the fungus, the sporangium can adhere itself onto whatever it lands, thus completing its life cycle.