Lovely sunshine again, but much colder this morning. The temperature firmly in wintry single digit territory.

I tried peeling back a piece of bark on a dead birch tree and was rewarded with mixed age group of variably coloured Common Rough Woodlouse (Porcellio scaber) and my first ever sighting on the downs of a Common Earwig (Forficula auricularia).

A Yew (Taxus baccata) sported a single ‘berry’. Just one ‘berry’ on a 3-4 m high tree. Of course, as the yew is dioecious this is a female tree. Either this is one the birds have missed or it is all that this tree produced. Yews only start producing seeds after 15 – 30 years so the height of this tree suggests that it may only be reaching that age bracket. A yew ‘berry’ is yet another example of a ‘berry’ that is not a berry. It is actually a single-seed cone surrounded by a red fleshy cup known as an aril, giving it a berry-like structure. Interestingly that red fleshy part is sweet and edible, while the seed that it surrounds is highly toxic.

Right next to this yew tree was a Scaly Male Fern (Dryopteris affinis). This Dryopteris species is semi-evergreen, meaning that it keeps most of its leaves through winter, but loses them for a short period when new foliage starts to grow in spring. The one in my image shows a lot of white speckling on the upper surfaces of the leaflet, especially close to the margins. This is probably a result of ‘grazing’ by various insect larvae, which took place months ago. The undersides show ‘exploded’ sporangia that would have released their spores in late summer. I located yet another globular springtail on one of the fronds. They seem to be popping up everywhere recently.

In this same area I found Ochre Spreading Tooth (Steccherinum ochraceum) fungus on a dead branch.

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