Brandon Country Park – a slime mould, an earthfan with lichen, and a caterpillarclub fungus

Near the A1065, south-west of Brandon an exciting find—clusters of slime mould sporangia on a fallen conifer tree.

In the field I assumed that they were Trichia decipiens, but back at home, reviewing the photos, I wasn’t so sure. Do a search for T. decipiens online and pretty much all the images are of a bright orange, globose or obpyriform fruiting body on a translucent white stalk. These sporangia, however, were mostly quite crowded with only a few with visible stalks and not so bright orange, more coral. I’m wondering if they might be Arcyria ferruginea.

The crowded sporangia group in the photo below is not the typical online photo representation of T. decipiens…?

The two oversized fruiting bodies in the photo below are wonderful.

I had peeled back some of the bark which revealed these splayed out sporangia with elongated stalks on the left in the photo below.

Near the heathland area we spotted some earthfans—Thelephora terrestris. One had some lichen growing out of it.

I would have missed it, but the eagle-eyed daughter spotted a Cordyceps militaris—the scarlet caterpillarclub!