[NeilB]

Hello Chris,

sorry about the delay. I should say first that without your excellent pictures and identification of this species I would have

ignored it, so most of the credit is yours.

The foam was collected from Brislington Brook as it passes through St Anne’s Wood in south-east Bristol shortly before

joining the river Avon. The final sentence of Brislington Brook’s Wikipedia entry states that ” water quality remains poor with

relatively high biochemical oxygen demand”, this doesn’t sound too promising but things are much better than they used to

be and several small man-made waterfalls in the last mile or two of the stream’s course help the oxygenation.

Considering the rarity I was surprised to find a photograph of a conidium in a paper published in 2015 in Fungal ecology*, one

of twenty images of aquatic hyphomycetes showing the variety of form but not commented on further.

Best wishes, Neil.

* Biogeography of aquatic hyphomycetes, current knowledge and future perspectives. Duarte et al.

[NeilB]

Why my post came out looking like this I don’t know.

I’ll have to preview everything in future.

[NeilB]

Hello Chris,

many thanks for the warm welcome. The foam was collected from Brislington Brook as it passes through St Anne’s Wood in south-east Bristol

shortly before joining the river Avon. The final sentence of Brislington Brook’s Wikipedia entry states that “water quality remains poor with

relatively high oxygen demand”, this doesn’t sound too promising but things are much better than they used to be and several small man-made

waterfalls in the last mile or two of the stream’s course help the oxygenation.

Despite living in this part of Bristol all my life and owning a copy of Ingold’s Guide to Aquatic Hyphomycetes for the last thirty years this was

the first time I’d examined foam from a stream, this species was on the first slide I prepared.

Considering its apparent rarity I was surprised to find a photograph of a conidium in a paper published in 2015 in Fungal Ecology*, one of twenty

images of aquatic hyphomycetes showing the variety of form but not commented on further.

Best wishes, Neil. * Putting a link in a post is beyond me but the details are Biogeography of aquatic hyphomycetes: current knowledge and

future perspectives. Duarte et al. Free PDF available.

[Author]

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