Steve Gale - friend, birder, moth-er, botanist and author of the absolutely fantastic North Downs and Beyond website had recently posted an intriguing blog. He'd somehow caught wind of an incredibly rare plant that was flowering at three sites in Surrey and had managed to obtain some great pics of it soon afterwards. Have a read for yourselves here http://northdownsandbeyond.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/a-starfruit-is-born.html I'd never even heard of Starfruit before, but a quick bit of research revealed that it really was bloody rare. Like hen's teeth, as Steve had put it. Shortly afterwards, Sarah Patton was posting her own pics of Starfruit on the PSL Facebook page. Then a couple more folks. I needed a day off work and some site gen! Steve very kindly provided the required site gen, it wasn't a threatened or private site, access was straightforward and the plants were visible from a path. Sweet, no worries. Then the twist....

Tony Davis asked if I'd seen the Starfruit yet and did I have specific site gen. No and yes to that. Did I fancy going on a fungus foray at the weekend? Errr..what? It transpires that the West Weald Fungus Recording Group were holding a foray on Holmwood Common that weekend. And Holmwood Common is not particularly far from the Starfruit site that I had gen for. Aaaah, suddenly Tony was making a whole lot of sense! Also up for the fun was Graeme Lyons, brilliant - what a bonus! We hatched our plans and somewhat ridiculously realised that we were all working on different agendas and car-sharing was impracticable. So we all arrived seperately at Holmwood Common (where I bumped into Ann Turner, an old friend from my Surbiton and District Birdwatching Society days - hello again Ann!)  Vivien Hodge was leading the walk and wasted no time in dissing my attempts to add to the species count. Apparently not all speckle on dead Holly leaves is Trochila ilicina, who knew...although she did accept my Greater Plantain Mildew (Golovinomyces sordidus), Knotgrass Mildew (Erysiphe polygoni), Oak Mildew (Erysiphe alphitoides) and Ergot (Claviceps purpurea) amongst a few others, so I wasn't a complete waste of skin.

Anyway, the whole walk was fairly hard going, we didn't find masses although I still managed a haul of new fungi for my PSL. One I particularly liked the look of was Orange Grisette (Amanita crocea). One bonus piece of gossip gleaned from the group was that Jack o' Lanterns fungus was currently showing by the roadside in Chiddingfold. We made a note of the details and planned to try for it later that day.

We bumped into Sarah Patton on the walk, for some daft reason I'd taken exception to something she'd said on Facebook earlier that week and we'd ended up publically slagging each other off. I can be a right cranky bugger when I'm overtired and have had a few too many beers. In the cold light of day I regretted the whole mucky incident. So it was a tad awkward bumping into her on the walk, generally we kept our distance throughout. But upon leaving, just as Tony and Graeme dashed for their cars, she wished me luck and said, "enjoy the plant". Bless her, she's a proper goodun really x

Anyway, I had my satnav and quickly led Graeme and Tony through the backstreets of the housing estate in full-on Wacky Races style. Minutes later we arrived at the designated site and leapt out towards the pond. A short while later we were at the appointed spot and this is what we saw

STARFRUIT!!! WA-HEY!!!! But, as we quickly realised, every plant seemed remarkably evenly spaced around the pond, and all the same distance out from the edge. With nothing growing in between. Hmmmm....suddenly this looked very much like an artificial situation. Was this even the same site that Steve had seen his plants? We did spot a couple of lone plants kinda hiding away in the centre amongst reed stems (must have quietly floated away before being weighted down in their basket), but on the whole this looked very definitely like someone's planting scheme. Dammit. Untickable Starfruit. Dammit. We all felt cheated, but had a look around anyway. We were here so decided to salvage it somehow. I started off brilliantly with these (don't laugh...)

These are Waterlily Aphids (Rhopalosiphum nymphaeae) which live on Plum and Blackthorn in the summer months before moving onto water-lilies, pondweeds and emergent vegetation in the autumn. Nothing much else like them out there - thankfully. There were masses of them on the Typha stems too. No idea what the fly is though. Graeme pointed out a couple of grasses that Tony and I hadn't seen before. Not sure either of us would recognise them again, I'm not really at the stage of doing grasses yet! I spotted a hugely gravid beetle which turned out to be Galeruca taneceti, another new species for me and one I have at least a moderate chance of recognising again.

Finished with the site, Tony asked if I knew where the Greater Dodder could be found at Leatherhead. "Certainly do" was my reply so we all set off once more and headed into Leatherhead. Parking up, I led the chaps along the riverside (Tony insisting I was heading the wrong direction, lol) seeing stuff like Water Chickweed (Myosoton aquaticum) and a patch of Small Teasel (Dipsacus pilosus) which was very pleasing to see - I've only seen it at one site before. Before long we were at the nettlebed where the Greater Dodder (Cuscuta europaea) occurs. I found it alright, but it was all dead! The chaps looked a bit crestfallen. Luckily we persevered and found a few patches with life in them and even a few healthy looking flowers. Phew, close call! The dodder looked rubbish, so here's some Water Chickweed instead -

We decided to start heading southwards again, but the day was still too young to think about quitting. With the thought of the Jack o' Lanterns fungus in Chiddingfold, we decided to head to Chiddingfold Woods via the roadside fungus. Stopping at the appointed oak tree we immediately saw numerous fungi around the base of its trunk - instant success! Of course, Jack o' Lanterns (Omphalotus olearius) has an impressive character that we were keen to experience - the gills glow in the dark (hence the name). I keep a sleeping bag in the back of my van for my overnight jaunts all over the place - I had a plan. Breaking off a fungus, I retreated to the van and pulled the closed sleeping bag over both my head and the fungus - and immediately was hit with a horrible smell, gakk! Persevering I held my breath and looked for a glow. Nothing. Maybe it was too dark? I let a tiny splinter of light in, still nothing. I cut the gills with my knife. Nothing. I bruised them, nothing. I needed fresh air! I quit looking for the glow. Cheesed off I offered Tony and Graeme the chance to try the sleeping bag trick. One whiff of the fungus though and they both declined. Wusses, lol. I guess the fungi really were well past their best which may have had something to do with it?

We shot off to Chiddingfold Woods, I had the van windows fully down (I have to admit I was very keen to be free from the fungal stench, I just hoped the sleeping bag would be habitable next time I needed it!) Graeme had never been to Chiddingfold before and couldn't even place which county he was in anymore. Tony was keen to show him the rare micromoth Coleophora wockeella which occurs on the Betony here. Graeme, naturally enough, was well up for that! So we struck off and had a good old wander around the complex. Sure enough Tony successfully located a case of Coleophora wockeella on the underside of a mined Betony leaf. This really is a cripplingly localised moth and this is without doubt the best site in Britain to find it. It's also where I discovered a colony of Coleophora calycotomella on the Broom, A SPECIES COMPLETELY NEW TO BRITAIN...dunno if I ever mentioned that before.....?  (then I went and found a second site a coupla years later) Tony loves it when I "bang-on" about that, lol.    :)

I've seen a good number of wockeella cases over the years, so was actually more impressed by the huge number of berries on the Wild Service Trees (Sorbus torminalis) as seen here. Certainly something I can't recall seeing before

Main target accomplished we went for a general wander, Graeme sweeping a few beetles and bugs that I hadn't seen before. New for me were the Mirid bug Phytocoris varipes, the beetles Anaspis lurida and Exapion fuscirostre (nice shoulder stripes for the genus!) and Ballus chalybeius a jumping spider which, somewhat unusually, lives in bushes. We also saw a sawfly larva that turned out to be the Large Rose Sawfly (Arge pagana)

We said our goodbyes, jumped in our cars and all shot off in different directions. Pity about the Starfruit fiasco, but we'd all had a great day nonetheless. Looking forward to the next mini adventure already!