Autumn Blues
November 17, 2016
The autumn colours have been quite remarkable this year however, on Tuesday this week, the South Downs Volunteers Rangers from the Seven Sisters group discovered an additional colour to add to the autumnal palette.
While clearing an area of scrub from Cloth Farm, Jevington, one of the group’s volunteers was intrigued to find a flash of bright blue on the underside of some dead wood she was removing from the ground. A short tweet investigation later and we learned that it was the aptly name cobalt crust (Terana caerulea); a fungus, rather than a lichen as we’d first thought.
Cobalt crust is a saprobic (lives on dead stuff) species of fungus, and is usually found on dead hardwood trees and fallen branches, particularly ash, though these specimens were on blackthorn. It is uncommon in England and Wales, though may be under recorded as a consequence of it usually growing on the damper underside of fallen branches and only visible when those branches are turned over.
Saved from the fire, the fallen branches and fungi were moved to a suitable surrogate area of scrub on the site that is going to be retained. The scrub clearance at Cloth Farm is being undertaken to protect and enhance a scheduled monument – an ancient field system thought to date back to the Iron Age.
(Matthew Dowse, Eastern Downs Assistant Ranger)