Readers' observations and questions on nature
I was descending through a pine forest after dark in Glenbeigh, Co Kerry, when I came across tiny objects, with a phosphorescent glow, on the forest floor. Could they be little insects or fungi of some sort?
Daniel Shaw-Smith, Ballyglass, Co Mayo Bioluminescence on the forest floor could come from a fungus or from some luminescent bacteria breaking down the litter. There is a forest mushroom whose mycelium glows in the dark, the yellow-stemmed mycena, which is found in conifer woods. The mycelium of honey fungus, the great enemy of the forester because it kills trees, also glows in the dark but usually on wood. The wingless, female glow-worm is a beetle which also emits light but, although present in the south of England, there is no record of it in Ireland.
While walking in Glenealo valley in Co Wicklow I noticed, on a big, grey boulder, some lichen that had odd growths on it. They were like little green egg-cups and stood proud above the lichen, but they were empty. David F. Nolan, Santry, Dublin 9.
Lichens are plants that consist of a fungus growing in symbiosus with an alga, and the cells by which they reproduce must contain both fungal and algal spores. The little green "eggcups" were the fruiting body of the fungus, and the spores would have been around the rim of the cups. The lichen probably belonged to the Cladonia family.
[ viney@anu.ie ]
Observations sent by e-mail should be accompanied by postal address.