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Ypsilina buttingtonensis

A previously unknown species of fungi has been discovered by scientists from core samples taken from the prone hulk of the 1,000 year old Buttington Oak that collapsed in February 2018.

Assisted by tree hunter Rob McBride, samples were extracted on March 14th 2018 by Matt Wainwright & Emma Gilmartin, of Cardiff University school of bioscience under Prof. Lynne Boddy.

Matt Wainhouse, Cardiff University prepares the tree for ‘coring’

Emma Gilmartin & Matt Wainhouse discuss the procedure

Rob McBride ‘coring ‘ the 1,000 year old Buttington oak

Matt Wainhouse PhD student from Cardiff University wrote

‘I have an update on the Buttington oak fungi and a request for you. I was able to culture 9 species from the tree. Fistulina hepatica was the dominant species and the one responsible for the giant hollow in the centre of the tree.

The rest were ascomycete fungi, most of which the ecology is totally unknown.

There were however a couple of interesting things. The first is is Cryphonectria radicalis, which is a benign cousin of chestnut blight. It is the fourth record of this species for the UK and first for Wales.

The second exciting find was an undescribed species...

So we sent it to expert taxonomists in Holland (after Kew) who are going to describe and name it. The name will hopefully be a homage to the Buttington oak itself.

Professor Pedro Crous. Image KNAW.nl

Initially the samples were studied at Cardiff, where the team spotted 'something unusual'. From Cardiff, samples were sent on to Brian Douglas at Kew, where their scientists confirmed that more specialist scientific research was needed to be carried out on the samples. The samples were therefore sent on to Prof. Pedro Crous at Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute in the Netherlands for detailed analysis and sequencing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Willem_Crous