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Project Noah Nature School
Omphalina chlorocyanea
A beautiful little mushroom with amazing colours. Not bigger than 2 cm across and 2,5 cm tall. Decurring, light gills, cap and stipe (dark)blue when young to green/yellow and almost transluscent when old. Funnel in the middle of the cap when mature. Slightly squamulose or grainy cap surface.
Saprotrophic, growing on the ground. Grasslands, non-calcareous sand, mostly between mosses and lichens on slightly acidic soil.
This is a mushroom which a worldwide rarity, though in the last few years it has been booming in the Netherlands. This is the result of nature development projects that are quite common these years. The map showing where I've found, it is older than 2011, because the farmland shown here has been leveled in that year. Almost 40 centimeters of the nutriëntrich topsoil has been dug away, so that the calciumrich percolationwater can reach the surface. This wil help the area to become poor in nutriënts like nitrogen and phosphorous, so plants like Succisa pratensis, Cirsium dissectum, some Carex species, Dactylorhiza maculata subsp. maculata and other orchids can grow, making it a special habitat for special plants and mushrooms!
Spotted on Apr 2, 2014
Submitted on Apr 4, 2014
4 Comments
Yes they are! "They", in this case, is Natuurmonumenten, or in English by its full name: Society for preservation of nature monuments in the Netherlands. This is only one of many projects. And I am happy that I have had the privillige to be part of this, for I have done some monitoring research with a couple of other Applied Biology students in the Vughtse Gement as a school project. Our goal was to see if the seedbank from the Moerputten, I've mentioned in my last comment, did actually grow out to become the "blue" grassland. It is called blue grassland, because of some plant species that characterize this association. Plants like Cirsium dissectum and Carex panicea give these grasslands a blueish colour.
Sounds like they are doing good work.
Thanks! They are removing the topsoil for both development as well as to encourage specific plants and plantcommunities. In this particular case in the Vughtse Gement (the former farmland), a "seedbank" from a neighbouring Natura200 nature reserve containing seeds from the plant association Cirsio dissecti-Mollinietum is spread out over the newly exposed surface. With this seeds and the seeds that are still in the soil, they're trying to get this special "blue" grassland back.
I really like the second pic. Interesting info. Are they removing the topsoil to encourage specific plants or for development?