About Alastair Culham
A professional botanist and biologist with an interest in promoting biological knowledge and awareness to all.
The black footed polypore gains it’s name from the black stipe supporting the fruiting body. It’s a saprophytic species growing on dead hardwood. This quite large and colourful fungus has not previously been reported on campus so I was excited … Continue reading →
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My last blog was on the common broomrape, Orobanche minor, the only species I had seen on campus in the past few years. Today I was excited to receive an email from Phöbe, one of the volunteer Friends of the … Continue reading →
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Parasitic plants, particularly ones with large and colouful flowers, are always a cause of curiosity from the casual observer, and are generally uncommon enough to exite field botanists. For many years there were numerous flower spikes of Orobanche minor on … Continue reading →
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I’m still working through numerous photos and trying to edit them – several of today’s blog batch are those our MSc Plant Diversity (#MScPlDiv) students tried to identify the next day. Note that not all the names scribbled on the … Continue reading →
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Here is the second gallery of fungal finds from our UK fungus day activities. A range of both small and crust-like fungi through to large boletes. There are part of the morning collections and a few of the afternoon foray … Continue reading →
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UK Fungus Day was marked by excellent weather for seeing and collecting fungi. The group walked through the Wilderness on the morning foray and then in to central campus for the afternoon foray. The group consisted of Thames Valley Fungi … Continue reading →
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Over the next two nights the UK will be aflutter with moth enthusiasts looking to see what is out and about. UK Moth Night aims to celebrate British moth recording activity and highlight this to the public. News coverage has … Continue reading →
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Sunday was a sunny, warm and pleasant day so it seemed a good idea to have a forage for late season fungi. The route took us through the wilderness, along the path from Earley Gate to the Library and then … Continue reading →
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Posted in Fungi
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Tagged Birch polypore, candlesnuff fungus, Chlorophyllum rhacodes, Clitocybe, Coprinopsis picaceus, Coriolus versicolour, Grifola frondosa, Helvella crispa, Hypholoma fasciculare, Laetiporus sulphureus, Leratiomyces ceres, Mycena, Pholiota, Piptoporus betulinus, Psathyrella conopilus, Ramaria stricta, Russula, Stereum gausapatum, Stereum hirsutum, Xylaria hypoxylon
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Thanks to Dave Butlin I can add another toadstool to our campus list – the black with white spots is a distinctive feature of Coprinopsis picacea, the aptly called Magpie Inkcap. These toadstools were seen today in wood chips and … Continue reading →
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This gallery contains 5 photos.
Victoria Wickens from the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research (CAER) has kindly provided a series of photos taken on campus over the summer.
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