Two fabulous sedges from late April on Arnside Knott. Spring Sedge (Carex caryophyllea) and its rare red relative Carex ericetorum (Rare Spring Sedge). The beautiful wine red glumes of ericetorum separate these really well in flower/fruit. What beauties! 😍 @bsbibotany.bsky.social

A major new YouGov poll of 2,600+ people shows: 78% favour solar 63% support onshore wind 70% back offshore wind And 70% would support a solar farm near their own home. That’s a landslide.

Funded PhD Opportunity: Seagrass Disease Ecology Explore how the pseudofungus Phytophthora gemini impacts Zostera marina and restoration success. Lab + fieldwork @thembauk.bsky.social @plymuni.bsky.social & OCT. Combine microbiology, ecology & restoration science 🌱 👉 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK439/p...

To round up my year of biological recording, here are my favourite finds from each month of 2025! January - Jubula hutchinsiae I re-found this colony recorded in 2004 in the Glen Stream, co. Down. A v interesting & unmistakable oceanic liverwort of humid wooded stream valleys

Are you interested in learning more about identifying plant pathogens in the wild? Come along to my webinar at 7pm on the 27th of January! bsbi.org/take-part/ev... #FungiFriends #WildPlantDisease

Having an incredible time down South, milder weather and a lot of fungi still about. Including the weird and wonderful like this White Basket! (Ileodyction cibarium) 😍

I'm learning a programming language called Julia at the minute. Here is a graph I made showing how the probability of a disease going extinct changes as its host plant gets more common in a simulation. There is a clear and sudden phase transition below which there is a collapse in host connectivity.

You can really see my biases in my iNaturalist records from this year. Almost all of the flies are gall midges, almost all the wasps are gall wasps, almost all of the arachnids are gall mites :P The fungi are well represented this year in pink (1587 records), as are the plants in green (870 records)

1/2 #speciesaday no. 677 is Walckenaeria acuminata. Periscope up! The male of this spider has its eyes spread out along the turret - 4 half way and the other 4 at the top! This genus is an utter joy, I love showing this spider to people for the first time. Even the female has a small protrusion.

The brainiest orange rock posy lichen (Rhizoplaca chrysoleuca) I ever saw. Northwest Territories, Canada. #lichen #fungi #fungifriends

A few Wild Radish were flowering in a fallow arable field near Pentireglaze, Cornwall today, with lovely colour hues to the petals. Raphanus raphanistrum subsp raphanistrum

I wish more people were aware of this. Considering the scale of the threat, the media's near-silence is both remarkable and culpable. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Plant taxonomy is disappearing - and so is our ability to protect species 🍂 Nearly half of countries have fewer than 10 plant taxonomists. Kew is working to close the gap, but we need more experts fast. Read the study’s key findings and what we're doing about it 👇 https://ow.ly/XhJo50XyGAa

Terana caerulea #Teranacaerulea #Terana #BlauerRindenpilz #Rindenpilz #cobaltcrust #velvetbluespread #mushroom #mushrooms #fungus #fungi #pilz #pilze #champignons #champignon #nature #natur #FungiFriends

Unfortunately I have picked up a virus and will not make it to #BIBConf but here is my poster, which explains what I am doing in my PhD. #FungiFriends #WildPlantDisease

Interactions between plant pathogens (left) and plants across five quadrats in a restored species-rich grassland. The basic premise of my PhD is to see if these interaction networks differ between restored and ancient grasslands. #FungiFriends #NetworkEcology

Waxcap #fungi

Meadow, Snowy, Pink Waxcap at an ancient grassland site I am sampling today. The wonders of rural South Down! #FungiFriends

My soil sampling partner for the day. Very interested in sniffing all my equipment! All I could think of was "an Mhuc Dhubh" which killed one of the Fianna in a story I heard last week...

The success of Wikipedia demonstrates the good that comes from trust between strangers, says founder Jimmy Wales. With his new book The Seven Rules of Trust released today, Jimmy spoke with RNZ about building the world's largest online encyclopedia on trust. 🎧📖 Listen and read below 👇

Parrot waxcaps in local Hazelwood.#fungi

Fungi specimens collected for DNA sequencing. Raffle tickets are useful for tracking specimens as they are dried

I had a great time this morning learning to use the Scanning Electron Microscope. Here are urediniospores of Puccinia rusts from the grassland restoration projects of @donnarainey4.bsky.social and @ceanncait.bsky.social . I'm hoping it will help with ID! #FungiFriends #PlantPathogens

The craziest coloured Parrot Waxcaps I’ve ever seen!! Aren’t they amazing!!!! 💚🩵💛🩷🧡 #FungiFriends #MushroomMonday

Polka dots of Entyloma calendulae on Marigold in Aberystwyth today. #FungiFriends #plantpathogens

Thanks for this - and thanks to @norwichbirder.bsky.social for reposting it - found my first locally in Penicuik yesterday - something I definitely would have overlooked otherwise 👍

I'm delighted that we have a whole range of talks from our Northern Ireland Botanical Skills Project taking place this winter on Tuesday evenings. Want to learn more about conifers? Rushes? Clubmosses? Hawthorns? Plant Pathogenic Fungi? ROBOTS?? See them all here: bsbi.org/botanical-sk...

It's that time of the year again – look out for blackened veins on yellowed leaves of Ribwort Plantain, caused by the fungus Spilopodia nervisequia! #FungiFriends

Accidentally scythed off in #LyeValley #fen, this small delicate inkcap toadstool made my day with its fragile beauty. Maybe a small Hare's foot inkcap, Coprinopsis lagopus? #fungifriends @friendlyevalley.bsky.social

It's impossible not to love the Merveille du Jour. Just incredible moths! #MothsMatter @savebutterflies.bsky.social

The Government is planning to roll out mandatory digital ID. It’s invasive and could mean millions of people unable to go about their daily lives. Right now it's just an idea - we need to stop it becoming a reality. Join me and sign the petition now! you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/re...

I've arrived in Aberystwyth where I'll spend the winter learning fungal (meta-)barcoding and working on some theoretical background for my research on plant-pathogen networks in grasslands. It was nice to find a species new to me as I explored the town: the rust fungus Puccinia umbilici on Navelwort

Thanks to everyone who gave me camera advice – as it turns out my grampa had a small camera he never used lying around that is absolutely perfect. I took it for a test run: here is Coleosporium euphrasiae on Eyebright and Podosphaera plantaginis on Ribwort Plantain. #FungiFriends

On Saturday I led a workshop on plant pathogens. We saw a wide variety of species and found just how ubiquitous this group is, in spite of rain and hail! It's been great to see more people recording pathogens, and I hope events like this will make it more accessible. #FungiFriends

My favourite wildflowers of the year,meadows of Devil's bit scabious and Purple loosestrife. A joy to see these meadows.#wildflowerhour

Gymnosporangium cornutum ex Sorbus aucuparia #Sorbusaucuparia #Sorbus #Eberesche #Vogelbeere #rowan #Sorbierdesoiseleurs #sorbodegliuccellatori #serbaldeloscazadores #Gymnosporangiumcornutum #Gymnosporangium #Phytopathology #Rustfungus #Rostpilz #Pilz #Fungus #Nature #FungiFriends

I had the pleasure of visiting a meadow managed by @donnarainey4.bsky.social today. Only when I got home did I notice the swelling on the midrib of this Dandelion leaf, which turned out to be the leaf smut Protomyces pachydermus. #FungiFriends

A clear sign we are no longer a democracy. When the regime loses in court, it continues to do the same illegal thing and no one is able to stop it.

An opportunity of a lifetime for budding lichenologists. The National Trust and the Royal Botanics, Edinburgh are offering a PAID lichen traineeship in #Scotland! The work programme looks fascinating and a great opportunity to develop skills. Deadline: 3/10/2025. www.asva.co.uk/jobs/trainee...

Phacellium alborosella on Mouse-Ear Chickweed. #FungiFriends #WildWebsWednesday

another dreech day on the bog

I visited one of Fermanagh's mythical species-rich grasslands today. They really exist, apparently. This one had a lot of Devil's-bit Scabious

Some nice Gymnosporangium rusts on Rowan today – they look a bit like sea slugs I think #FungiFriends

Some uncommon rusts in Fermanagh yesterday Uromyces trifolii-repentis on Trifolium repens, and Chrysomyxa empetri on Empetrum nigrum. This is the first Irish record of the former. #FungiFriends

I recently visited Abbeyleix Bog in Laois, which is a shockingly intact lowland raised bog (the only one I've ever seen that is actually still raised in the middle). I saw Exobasidium karstenii, a parasite of the lowland bog specialist Bog Rosemary. The shoots are red and hypertrophied #FungiFriends

A fly-killing fungus Entomophthora syrphi on its hoverfly host. It produces conidiophores which shoot spores like cannons by building up turgor pressure behind them. #FungiFriends

I was quite excited by this today – it seems to be the second global record of a Peronospora on Potentilla erecta. Peronospora potentillae-reptantis is known from some related species. #FungiFriends

🍄Microfungi on insects🍄 Fungi in the genus Hesperomyces are associated exclusively with ladybirds, visible as yellowish-greenish elongated balloons. We aim to map them in Europe and describe #newspecies. Join the #FunDive campaign! #Biodiversa fun-dive.eu/en/get-invol...

The uredinium of a rust fungus and two pycnidia of Ascochyta agrostidis on a leaf of Creeping Bent. These grasses are riddled! #FungiFriends

I saw two Perseid meteors last night (it was unfortunately quite overcast), a sparrowhawk attempting to catch a rabbit, and lots of bats!