The Boggy Brae: August 2014

Sunday 31 August 2014

Identifying Dicranum Scoparium

Yesterday I was struggling to identify the moss on these pieces of rotting spruce. Years ago the people who lived at the Boggy Brae planted two of their christmas trees on the south-east slope and left them to grow. Judging from the size of the stumps that are left, the trees grew huge and must have blocked a lot of light. Eventually they were cut down and slices of the thick trunk left to rot at the side of the garden. Over the years these slices of trunk have become tiny jungles of mini-plants, mini-beasts and fungi.

So yesterday afternoon I went to have another look at the moss in situ. You can see bright green patches of it in the middle of this pic. It's just possible to see where I took my samples from at the top.

Unfortunately, my welly-booted foot slipped as I was crouching to look closer and this happened:

A large piece of one of the logs broke away when I fell against it

I like the shadow of the fern on the wood
I think it is Broad Buckler Fern (Dryopteris dilatata)
There are lots of all sizes at Boggy Brae

My eye caught the prancing-about of several blue leaf-hoppers and I managed to get a photo of one.

I also noticed bluish-white ant pupae and, in next to no time, ants scurrying about rescuing them and taking them back into the 'rooms' of the ant nest. If they'd had time to do anything else I expect they'd have marched over and (justifiably) bitten me for my clumsiness in wrecking their home. It's not often you get to see some of the inside of an ant nest so I enjoyed the view.

Ant pupae being taken to safety by adult worker ants

Ant nest 'rooms' in a rotting log

I took some more pictures of the moss and with those and a bit more microscopic peering, I think I have identified it as Dicranum scoparium (Broom Fork-moss). you can click on the pics to enlarge them.

Dicranum scoparium/Broom Fork-moss

Somewhere along the way in my searching I seem to remember reading about orangey-red rhizoids, which this moss certainly had, but there is nothing about that in either my Moss Guide by the British Bryological Society (ISBN 978-0-9561310-1-0) or in Roger Phillips photographic book (ISBN 0-330-25959-8) so perhaps it was with reference to another moss. However, my sample did have orangey-red rhizoids.

Rhizoids of Dicranum Scoparium

This morning I discovered that although the ants didn't get me (this time! still have scars from the last time weeks ago!!), a tick did. Hey ho, life on the boggy brae.

I'm always happy to be corrected by PWK (People Who Know) so do let me know if I've got an ID wrong.

Saturday 30 August 2014

The first of the autumn welly wanders

in my PJs and dressing-gown, while Toad and Toadlet snore on.

The irrepressible rose flowers on

The perennial sweet peas flower a second time

The polopody ferns on the dry stone wall make spores

Some less ripe ones

Then I looked over the wall and saw the meadow saffron (Colchicum autumnale) in flower

Its neighbouring bolete

I counted six boletes this morning

Some self-seeded ling also on the front bank under the downy birch

And more fungi various:

a Russula, I think

a second Coprinopsis lagopus

These on an old log

Seems the roe deer are still munching on the rosebay willowherb,
preventing it from flowering

the early autumn state of some roseroot

Lungwort leaves looking good

Azalea leaves; I almost like these better than the flowers
whose scent makes me sneeze

This, of wild angelica seed, is specially for DivingDaghter

Can you see the wolf?

Wednesday 27 August 2014

Dried eucalyptus

Dried eucalyptus leaves

Navajo bowl

Been out for some more shoots to dry
because the deer have discovered the shoots are good to munch
so there aren't many left on our eucalyptus bench!

Some shoots in July

Tuesday 26 August 2014

Six barras of wood, a moth, a newt, and a fungus or two

Lovely day today so I decided to finish shifting the pile of wood by the old rowan–pieces of rhododendron and goat willow that I sawed and piled several years ago. It's not the best firewood but with a bit of help it should burn allright this winter.

When I pulled the blue cover away I noticed what looked like an etiolated white fungus:

Then I noticed the little stripey beastie next to it–a newt. There was a tiny one too but it ran away before I could photogragh it. Nice find.

Trundling my wheelbarrow of wood down the garden, partly to stack neatly in the den to use in the stove in there over the winter, I noticed some other fungi and a pretty moth beside one of them. It seems that keeping a look out for fungi makes you notice other interesting things too. Firewood pics first...

One of the den piles

Part of the wood (two barrows) I just tipped haphazardly straight out of the wheelbarrow onto the ridiculous hearth in our living-room (we did not install it but we did install the stove). We've begun to feel the need of an evening fire lately.

I chucked the damper pieces at the side of the woodshed–there is a space at the right hand side next to my mega-NEAT pile of fresh cypress and eucalyptus that still needs to dry out a bit before we can use it. There is more cypress (like the bottom stripe) to go in before we stack this winter's fuel, but Toad hasn't finished splitting the logs yet. It's a bit by bit process like much else at the Boggy Brae. He has discovered that the cypress logs are getting easier to split as they dry a little. The eucalyptus was easiest when very 'green'.

So, here are some other wee fungi, and the moth

ME payback is telling me to go and have a nap now, so more of this morning's boggy brae bumblings anon.

Saturday 23 August 2014

The progress of a sulphur polypore...

...on an old wild cherry tree. May 2008 was when I first noticed the fungus. Over the next few years it regrew and developed from inside the tree and weakened the main trunk. Several large branches and 'spare' trunks had already been removed by past Boggy Brae gardeners.