Dead Wood Fungi

We - and the horses in the field at Golspie Tower - are not enjoying the first real gale of the winter, which started early yesterday afternoon, battered the house through the night, and isn't due to ease until around 2pm today. It's been pretty fierce, with gusts to 60mph and driving rain which has, this morning, alternated with brilliant blue skies, which persisted for most of our walk during which....

....we found some quite unusual fungi, all of which were growing on dead wood. This is an odd one, perhaps white spindles, Clavaria fragilis, which usually grows in short-cropped grass but can grow in woodland, which is where we found it.

This tiny jelly - it's about 15mm long - may be either crystal brain fungus or white brain fungus, though I think it's the former, Myxarium nucletum, because it is clear. However, unusually, I'm....

....almost 100% sure of this, the leafy brain fungus Phaeotremella folacea. This fine specimen was about 6" across.

I also had a bit of a struggle identifying this one but I concluded that it's Bisporella sulphurina, a cup fungus with tiny cups of around 1mm diameter, and one which is sufficiently unusual not to have a common name. Another interesting fact - well, to me anyway - is that, if it is sulphurina, it's uncommon in Scotland.

This is one we found often enough last winter. It's the yellow brain fungus, Tremella mesenterica, which tends locally to grow on dead gorse branches. It seems an appropriate fungus to find on the day when....

....we spotted the first new flowers on a living gorse bush.