Spring fungi in the damp forest

When we were in the Otways looking for the Thismia last weekend (see last blog) we found quite a few different types of fungi as well. The mulch was damp, it was shady and there were quite a few understory shrubs and ferns present as well. In fact there was so much fungi there that it made me wonder why I haven't done more 'fungi forays' at this time of the year.

The first is a small stemmed black cup fungi, only a centimetre or two wide, possibly Plectania (or Peziza). We found quite a lot of this, often completely covered in mulch.

In an open but shaded area next to a path we found a beautiful coral fungus in various shades of pink and deep purple. It's possibly a Clavaria. The insects seem to like it as well.

The tiny blue Chlorociboria was growing on a piece of stick in the mulch. Apparently one species stains the wood blue and another doesn't. We didn't look that closely - it was hard to concentrate on the fungi when the Thismia was claiming our attention.

Looking for a needle in the haystack

They said it was impossible. 'Good luck', they said. 'Best of British luck.' But we pressed on.

Our plan was to search for a Fairy Lantern Thismia rodwayi in the wet forests of Great Otway National Park. Rosalind reasoned that because it grows in Tasmania and eastern Victoria it was a possibility that it would also be present in the Otways, given that Victoria and Tasmania were connected by a land bridge only 15 000 years ago. So she organised a bunch of us to go down there last weekend. It's a very big park but the search technique for this plant is to each take a one-square metre quadrat (that's one square metre!), carefully lift of the mulch and look underneath for this tiny plant. It might be red, but it's only a centimetre of two high. If no Thismia was present we moved on to another quadrat.

At our second site we were successful. It's a beautiful and unusual plant, aptly named Fairy Lantern. We found eleven plants in all, over two days. Naturally we were very excited. It was all good fun.

The first image is of an immature plant, the second is mature.

More bush creatures

This beautiful little Lauxaniidae fly was on a bush-pea at Blanket Leaf picnic ground in the Otways - I think it's Pultenaea mollis and the little yellow slime worm was under the mulch.

Small delights

The Great Otway National Park is big, very big, and diverse. Last weekend we explored some of the wet forest areas. These are some of the small beetles we saw. The first is a Scarab beetle, the Eucalyptus Chafer Xylonichus eucalypti. I don't know identity of the other two as yet. The butterfly is a Forest Brown Argynnina cryila.

Update: The second beetle is a darkling beetle Lepispilus rotundicollis, the red and black insect is a Lycid beetle.