Sorting through some old photos this evening, I can across this - taken on my in-laws lawn in Cornwall on New Year's Day 2012. This appears to be the basidiomycete
Arrhenia retiruga growing on
Calliergonella cuspidata. Has anyone else seen anything similar?
It does look like A. retiruga George, which grows on bryophytes, particularly pleurocarpous mosses. There are other Arrhenia species (about 12 in UK) and they are all associated with bryophytes as far as I can remember. Arrhenia spathulata is quite common on sand dunes in South Wales, growing with or on Syntrichia. There's a lot of it at Kenfig. The extent to which any of them are parasitic on bryophytes is an interesting question. In fact the extent to which bryophytes form relationships with fungi in general is fascinating.
ReplyDeleteThanks Charles. I don't know anything about the ecology of these Arrhenia fungi. As is evident from the photos, this one was growing near the tips of the shoots where there can't be much dead material present, so I'd have thought a pathogenic lifestyle was the most likely - unless there is a mycelial connection down the moss stem to the leaf litter/soil, in which case it could be saprotrophic.
ReplyDeleteRe bryophyte-fungi relations...I've heard mention that waxcaps might have an association with mosses, but I'm not sure if Gareth Griffiths, or anyone else, has got to the bottom of this yet.
Fascinating stuff and rather attractive too.
ReplyDeleteI think I have few pics of fungi on bryos - i'll post them if I find them. Ellis & Ellis published a list / key to microfungi on bryophytes in their Microfungi on Miscellaneous Substrates (1988). Not sure if there is an equivalent list of macro-fungi on bryos though. Must be lots of scope for finding new associations, although not always clear if a fungus is just growing out of substrate on which bryo is growing.
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