Saturday 3 May 2014

New Life in the Hills

It's a wonderful time to be wandering in the hills at the moment as, very suddenly, life is appearing in areas which, a few weeks ago, looked as dead as the African savanna in its dry season.  This little flower, one of the louseworts, was so bright amongst the dead grass of a hillside that it was impossible to miss.

It looks more like lousewort than the other species found around here, marsh lousewort.

Louseworts are supposed to like damp land, but this fungus had found an ideal spot to grow in a cushion of damp mosses, even though it happened to be on top of a hill.  I've tried to identify it without success.  It's small, the cap being about 1cm across, and the stalk is the same colour as the cap.

What appeared to be less-developed fruit bodies are seen to the left.

We found a couple of examples and, in each case, there were only three or four fruit bodies showing.

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