SOME
PLANTS—RARE by
AND
JANET C . N .
A RARE FUNGUS FOUND IN
OTHERWISE
WILLIS
SUFFOLK
MR. S. C. Porter writes " Mr. Humphrey Pease sought identification of a fungus growing on an Elm trunk in his gar den at Sudbourne. Mr Pease's description indicated a young State of Volvariella bombycina (Schaef ex. Fr.). I sent a rough sketch of what it should look like in a few days if it was what I thought. It developed as suggested. Mr. Mayfield listed it as an uncommon species in his Suffolk list (Trans. Vol. VI, p. 205) under the name of Volvaria bombycina (Schaef. Fr.). (Mr. Mayfield records it as found by himself at Needham Market.) " The first name is that used in the New Check List of British Agarics and Boleti (Trans. B.M.S. Supplement, June, i960)." Mr. Porter continues : " I have never found it myself in more than 25 years of hunting, and at the recent B.M.S. Annual Foray here in Birmingham I found only one or two of the country's best mycologists who had ever met any Volvariella (nine spp. in the list) ; it would seem rather more -than uncommon, in fact rare. I suppose it is no more than a coincidence that the day after replying to Mr. Pease I found two specimens myself on a beech tree in a wood near Bromsgrove where I do a lot of fungusing ". Mr. Pease in reply to a letter from me (J.C.N.W.) says he knows nothing of Fungi, but does notice other things besides birds. He did not know when he saw this fungus as a silky white egg, about the size of a goose egg, in a brownish egg-cup that it would develop a stem and a mushroom-type top. It grew on a fallen elm trunk, cut down a year ago. Since hearing from me, he has bought " The Observers' Book of Common Fungi " in which this fungus is not listed or figured. Polyporus lucidus, Fr. Mr. Simpson has found the rare Lacquered Polypore on a tree stump in a wood at Thurlow last April. He has found it also at Great Blakenham and Stutton. It is of a shiny black, both blade and stalk. OXALIS SPECIES IN
SUFFOLK
Many members have asked for the name of a terrible little pest in our gardens in the Ipswich and Woodbridge area. I could only say it was an Oxalis, but now I have füll information about it from Dr. D. P. Young, the authority on the genus. It is Oxalis corymbosa. T h e leaf is palmate with three leaflets, the flower lilac-pink with darker veins in a " contracted cyme " of three to six flowers. Leaves and flower stems rise from a greenish bulb which has loosely attached to it a Cluster of tiny brown bulbils— so small that as Dr. Young says in his account of it in Watsonia
198
PLANTS
Vol. 4, pt. 2, " it is impossible to comb them out of the soil and th have the property of growing and spreading the faster the more attempts are made to dig them out ". We all know that. Dr. Young continues " it is one of the more serious weeds in that it fails to respond to weed-kiler ; the nearest approach to a partly successful method is the use of pigs and poultry to rout for the bulbils ". Can anyone lend me a pig this autumn ? I have see it in tiny slips of garden in back streets in Ipswich where there is hardly scratching room for a hen, let alone a pig. Dr. Young writes that he has not heard of Oxalis corymb Suffolk before. So will botanists and gardeners send me a post card if it is found in their part of Suffolk in gardens or established elsewhere. It is very widespread elsewhere especialy around London. I sent Dr. Young another Oxalis weed from my garden. This he says is O. incamata. It has a bulb two cm. long, an white underground stem and an erect branching stem and bears sessile bulbils in the axils of the leaves. The leaves are delicate, pale green and the peduncles of theflowersfrom the axils are slende with two tiny bracts near the middle. At a careless glance some people may mistake this plant for Wood Sorrel, O. acetosella Thefloweris trumpet shaped, pale lilac with dark veins. " It is difficult to decide at what point it is to be considered feral," but " it is justifiable to call O. corymbosa feral since defies efforts to exterminate it." N.B. Neither of these species is mentioned in C.T.W.'s first edition or older Floras ; consequently we have no records of them. Oenanthe crocata. We can now claim that this does ex Suffolk. Mr. G. C. D. Curtis told me that he and his wife ha seen it in some plenty near a wood seawards from Pin Mill an Mr. Simpson has confirmed this. Hind in his Flora stated that the species did not occur in Suffolk, but I found a note in a co lent to me by Lady Rowley in which the late Miss Edith Rawlin said she had found a single veryfineplant at Pin Mill in 193 and because of Hind's remark had sent a piece to Prof. W. H. Pearsall who confirmed that it was O. crocata. So Mr. and Curtis's plants must be descendants of the onefineplant. Two or three years ago O. crocata was recorded as occur Micklesmere, Ixworth. Mr. Mitchell looked for it but only found another Oenanthe. Now Mr. Derrick Martin has thoroughly explored the moat of Ixworth Abbey which belongs to his daughte and is assured that what was taken for O. crocata is in fac aquatica. Solanum chenopodioid.es, a casual with dark green M. Rutterford found this at Lakenheath and brought a specimen to our excursion to King's Forest on 29th September, to show us how it differs from S. nigrum.