Protomyces macrosporus on Ground Elder

Hi,

This was spotted by one of our team of National Trust volunteer fungi surveyors at Longshaw on Wednesday. Sally, Brian, Rob, Emily, John and I look at everything and pick up stuff you’d never look at twice. Ground Elder grows by my Sheffield front door and stays there, luckily it doesn’t get across the tarmac path into the garden. I’ve been waithing for it to produce something interesting but have never seen anything. I took a couple of leaves home from Longshaw and spotted this one small gall, less than 2 mm across. A bit of the hard, waxy content produced some cracking rust-like spherical objects, which stained nicely in Congo Red. My British Galls book showed it to be Protomyces macrospora – confirmed by Malcolm Storey’s internet pictures at http://www.bioimages.org.uk/html/r161405.htm. They are chlamydospores. Interestingly I measured them at up to 70 um across, with walls about 5 um thick – roughly twice the size of that given in Bioimages.

Another new one for me, and another new record for Longshaw Estate, adding to the 3 other “Proto” fungi previously recorded there:

Protoblastenia rupestris (Lichen)

Protoparmelia badia (Lichen)

Protoventuria arxii (a tiny Asco – pseudothecia black, superficial on olivaceous subiculum, on Rhododendron)

Cheers,

Steve