Foxes Lair
  • Home
  • About
    • About Foxes Lair
    • History
    • Landscape and Soils
  • Things To Do
    • Scavenger hunt
    • Picnic Spots
    • Walking Tracks
    • Visit the Arboretum
    • Geocaching and Orienteering
    • Ride Your Bicycle
  • Things To See
    • Birds
    • Wildflowers
    • Trees in the Narrogin district
    • Narrogin spiders scorpions ticks
    • Vertebrates
    • Fungi and lichens
  • Other Places to Visit
    • FAMILY bush attractions
    • WILDLIFE bush attractions
    • WILDFLOWER bush attractions
    • all reserves
  • 1Foxypress
    • Foxypress
    • Vanishing Farms
  • Foxes Lair seasonal guide
  • Contact

Hypomyces chrysospermus Bolete Destroyer

30/7/2020

 
PictureFungus emerging from dead spider
​Greetings fellow Foxies,
A chance discovery of a mass of brilliant yellow spores erupting from the ground led me to the interesting world of mycotrophic fungi – fungi that parasitise other fungi. These are common in parts of the world but only one is listed in WA. This is Hypomyces chrysospermus, ominously called the bolete destroyer, which is an ascomycete fungus.
 
Ascomycetes generally have small fruiting bodies that are frequently disc or rod-shaped. They are most commonly seen as the small fruiting discs on lichens, where fungi have an association with single celled algae.
 Cordyceps genus ascomycetes gruesomely parasitise insects and spiders like the golden orb weaver I found in Foxes Lair. Cordyceps affects a caterpillar’s brain, inducing it to climb up a stem. A Cordyceps fruiting body then grows out of the insect’s head where its spores are spread. (delightful!).

PictureSalmon gum bolete after rain
​I found Hypomyces affected boletes in soil adjoining a drain on the north side of salmon gum bolete patch in the arboretum. They were less than a quarter the size of unaffected boletes and had only partially emerged.
​Three specimens below show increasing stages of infection.
The least affected bolete below had a Hypomyces white powdery coat, except for a small unaffected area on the top of the cap.
Fungus fly maggots normally start eating these boletes as they have reached full size but had already tunnelled through most of this specimen (probably because it was parasitised).
Hypomyces has three stages of spore production. The first 2 asexual stages have white and then gold spores. The last sexual stage has minute colourless flasks.​ White Hypomyces hyphae containing white asexual spores has invaded maggot holes and pores of the bolete.

PictureTop view: The brown leathery central band has yet to be invaded

Picture
Underside. White coating of spores covering mushy brown dead bolete tissue
PictureUnderside. White coating of spores covering mushy brown dead bolete tissue

The more advanced second specimen appeared quite dry on the exterior. Presumably, maggots had eaten out the stem but were forced out of the other tissue by Hypomyces hyphae (I wonder if it is toxic?).
 The cross section shows that most bolete tissue has been replaced by yellow Hypomyces hyphae and spores.
Picture
Top view. White and yellow spore coat
Picture
Underside, note hollow stem
Picture
profile. Yellow Hypomyces tissue
The interior of the third bolete has been completely replaced by Hypomyces hyphae and spores.
 A casual observer would think that they had found a yellow puffball at its powdery phase.
 The bolete has been well and truly destroyed!
Picture
Picture
Picture

Foxes Lair Mat Rushes

24/7/2020

 
Mat Rushes are monocotyledons, which look like sedges until they flower. They are clumpy perennials with tough leaves, which grow from underground rhizomes. Flower spikes with small delicate wind-pollinated flowers arise from the base of the plant.
Picture
Lomandra micrantha male plant
Mat Rushes are monocotyledons, which look like sedges until they flower. They are clumpy perennials with tough leaves, which grow from underground rhizomes. Flower spikes with small delicate wind-pollinated flowers arise from the base of the plant.
They are dioecious (have boy and girl plants). You  have to look very closely to see flower differences.

Male flowers have six prominent stamens, but the pistil (stalk from the ovary that receives pollen for fertilisation), is short and sterile – a pistillode.
​
Female flowers had insignificant sterile stamens (staminodes).

Lomandra micrantha has tiny flowers that I did not find until about 5 years ago. You need a camera with a macro lens to appreciate the delicate beauty of these apparently drab flowers.
Picture
Lomandra micrantha female
Picture
Lomandra micrantha male
Scented Lomandra, Lomandra effusa is an attractive plant, which flowers in September is common near the Claypit.
Picture
Lomandra effusa
Picture
Female with seeds
Picture
Male flower. Central pistil reduced and sterile
Picture
Picture
Little Fringe-Leaf /Chamaexeros serra also flowers on the Claypit flats in September and October. Plants in this genus are mat rushes with bisexual flowers and fringed leaves.

Hybanthus floribundis

17/7/2020

 
Picture
​Greetings fellow Foxies,
There has been a revolution in our understanding of soil formation in the last 20 years.
Narrogin has a part to play in this!
My former work colleague Dr Bill Verboom developed the theory that native plants and associated microbes created most of our soils to get preferential access to soil water and nutrients.
Roots of these plants secrete organic molecules that dissolve ‘locked’ nutrients like phosphorus and stimulate microbes and fungi to produce clays and ironstone gravels.
​

Hybanthus floribundis is a widely distributed small shrub with another unusual property.
It is an ‘accumulator’ plant that can preferentially extract nickel and cobalt from the soil. Values of up to 23% nickel in leaf ash may represent the highest recorded relative accumulation of a metal in a plant.
Potentially, it could be used to detoxify nickel mining tailings or even used for biological nickel mining.
Unfortunately, is difficult to grow from seed.
Hybanthus floribundis subsp. floribundis is only found in a water accumulating corner of the clay flat adjoining the claypit.
It must have suffered from the dry finish last year as I could only find a single flowering plant yesterday.
A member of the violet family, it has tiny exquisite flowers that most people would not notice

Picture

Pygmy Sundews

10/7/2020

 
PictureLeft: Red ink sundew Right: Cone sundew
​Greetings fellow Foxies,
 
July is a time for appreciating small plants. Sundews are actively growing and harvesting insects for their nutrients. I love seeing the sun behind them lighting up drops of sticky insect-trapping ‘glue’ and dew in the early morning.
If you know where to look, there are carpets of tiny pygmy sundews. With one exception they only occur in Australia. 

​Pygmy sundews are explosive plants!! 

PictureGemmae encased in white stipules
There are three species in Foxes Lair.
​
The first two are perennials that have cluster bomb type (gemmae) vegetative reproduction. Gemmae are produced early in the season after leaves have formed
Gemmae are modified leaves which detach, root, and form new plants. They are produced from the rosette center, and look like a bundle of little grapes or flat scales. They become so densely packed that the old leaf stipules are pushed away from the rosette centre. This acts like the cocking of a trigger---when a single raindrop strikes the mass of gemmae, the disturbance makes the stipules flex back to their normal positions in an explosive burst, thus shooting the gemmae as far as a few meters!
They can rapidly populate bare areas of soil when the surface is wet.

​Drosera androsaceae (Cone Sundew) occurs in wetter bare spots on the clay flat north-east of the Claypit.
These are amazingly tough plants as this area is wet when it rains, but dry and hard for much of the year.
Exceptionally dry weather last summer killed many but you can still see plants dotted in protected spots
Picture
Cone sundews on claypit flays
Picture
Sticky Cone sundew tendrils trap and dissolve insects
​Drosera scorpioides (Shaggy Sundew) can be found on gravelly soils underneath the jarrah trees near the seat. The shaggy description is apt because they live for over a decade and develop a shaggy coat of dead tendril leaves as they grow up through the leaf litter. This and aerial micro stilt roots that elevate the plant above the soil surface make them admirably adapted to dry gravelly soils
Picture
Shaggy sundew leaves drooping due to dry weather
Picture
“Old man shaggy” double header 6cm high

​​They are very successful ant catchers. Lots of the plants had many tendrils curled, or slowly curling around captured ants
Picture
Tendrils starting to close
Picture
Trapped
​ Perennial sundews produce flowers, but most fail to produce viable seed.
Picture
Flowering cone sundew
Picture
Flowering Shaggy sundew
​Drosera glanduligera (Pimpernel sundew) is the only annual sundew. It only occurs on one small spot near the Granite Walk but is fairly common on shallow moist soils on and around granite rocks.
It is explosive in another way! Its tendrils close so quickly that it might just be the fastest moving plant in the world. (check out the video on this link)
Tendrils move faster than the eye can see: a couple of hundredths of a second. "And an ant or prey will walk on that gland and the gland will actually flick it into the centre of the leaf. There is no escape."
Amazing for a plant that is no more than 6cm tall. Minute, deadly and beautiful
Picture
Pimpernel sundew
Picture
<<Previous

    Author

    Doug Sawkins is a friend of Foxes Lair 

    Categories

    All
    Animals Other
    Birds
    Disorders Plant Animal
    Fungi Lichens
    History
    Insects Bugs Other Arthropods
    Landscapes Soils
    Other Reserves And Places
    Reptiles
    Spiders Other Arachnids
    Tree
    Walks Other Facilities
    Wasp
    Wildflowers Orchids
    Wildflowers Other Summer Autumn
    Wildflowers Other Winter Spring
    Wildflowers Parasitic

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    May 2012
    March 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    April 2011

© 2015 All Rights Reserved. Doug Sawkins, Australia.