Photo: Felty Earthstar (AWD), Linda van der Kamp

Felty Earthstar is a smal to medium sized earthstar, without stem, with a fibriate mouth-zone, with court and often with a clear ring-furrow. Older and more mature Felty Earthstars have a brown-yellow color, a felty pale star-rays-bottom, and enrusted debris, but no scar. Sometimes old Felty Earthstars look like Collared Earthstars with wobble-tiptoes and a pale dirty white layer when the felty layer is worn.

Field-marks to distinct older Felty Earthstar from older Collared Earthstar:

• Felty Earthstar has a felty layer at the bottom of its star-rays, heeft een kale onderkant.
• Felty Earthstar maakt vaak een kraag, maar deze is veel onduidelijker dan bij de Collared Earthstar
• Felty Earthstar De slippenkrans is omgekruld (=saccaat), maar bij oude exemplaren draaien de slippunten vaak terug, naar een uitgespreide stand (=pseudoconvex).
  Bij een Collared Earthstar staat de slippenkrans meestal vrijwel uitgespreid(=convex), zelden omgekruld(=saccaat).
  De slippunten bewegen op oudere leeftijd niet alsnog een andere kant op dan de rest van de slip.

How to exclude mistakability:

• Balloon description (mouth-zone, surface, color)
• Star-rays description (curling, wobbletoes, color, thickness)
• Earthstar upside down:
• Earthstar fixed to the ground (Encrusted debris)
• Bottom color of the star-rays (pale-white or felty)
• Check for a scar
• If this is not helpful: dry the earthstar, and see what changes during the dry-process

Photo: Felty Earthstar (Geastrum saccatum) Meijendel (De Loopert), October 29 2010

Habitat:
Felty Earthstar prefers calcareous on open and poorly vegetated dunes. This means mossy vegetations at dry, humous-poor sandy soil, in dunal grasslands, often near little bushes. Felty Earthstar can be found in relative pioneer vegetations, and in sand-drifted open wood.

Standing-place (older earthstars):
The stand in Meijendel of older collared Felty Eathstars is an east-west dunal hill, with a concave at the north. In that concave there is a Hawthorn wood of about 15 meter length. Halfway, between the Hawthorns there were at least 12 Felty earthstars at January 7 2012.
The soil was poorly bad wssted litter of Hawthorn leaves, and it was poorly vegetated by glechoma hederacea and some grass.

A bit higher at the slope, more sandy, less vegetation, there were more earthstars, smaller, more compact. The lower ones were bigger in size of the ballons and of the star-rays.

First impression:
The first idea was Collared Earthstar, but with something strange (tubal shape wih wobble-toes) Perhaps a dunal shape? Turning the earhstar upside-down, it became clear.
White, pale felty bottom, exit idea Collared Dune Earthstar. This must be Felty Earthstar.

Wood species: not specific, the function of a tree for Felty Earthstar is shadow and protection against the wind.
Deciduous wood (Ash, Black Elder, Common Dwarf Willow, Common Spindle Tree, Elm, Hawthorn)

Regional:

Urban Amsterdam Area: no
Pleistocene Area: no
Northsea Dunal Area: yes

Photo:Felty Earthstar (Geastrum saccatum), Meijendel, January 7 2012

Field-marks: See: Anatomy Genus Geastrum

Felty Earthstar field-marks:

• Species size: small to medium
• Stem: No
   
• Balloon size: 0,7 tot 2,0 cm
• Balloon surface: bald
• Balloon color: beige to light grey-brown
• Balloon mouth-zone: fibrillose, with court, often with ring-furrow
   
• Star-rays number: 5-8
• Star-rays-thickness: to 3mm
• Star-rays surface: thick meaty surface, first white later brown, at drying sometimes collar-forming
• Star-rays color young: white to beige
• Star-rays color older: brown
• Star-rays: old star-ray-tips can curl only once up or down.
• Star-rays: non-hygroscopic (non-repetitive curling and stretching)
   
• Star-rays: 1 - 4,5 cm in diameter
• Star-rays: saccate (curled)
• Star-rays bottom color: ochre to light brown-yellow felty layer
• Star-rays-scar: yes 2-4 mm in diameter
• Star-rays-encrusted-debris: no

Photo:Felty Earthstar (Geastrum saccatum), Meijendel, January 7 2012

Literature:
Chrispijn, R. ed. (1999), Champignons in de Jordaan (De paddenstoelen van Amsterdam), Schuyt en Co, 162-163.
Hansen L. & H. Knudsen (1997), Nordic Macromycetes, Vol. 3, Heterobasidioid, aphyllophoroid and gasteromycetoid basidiomycetes, Kopenhagen, 1997, 444 pp.
Jalink, Leo M (1995) De aardsterren van Nederland en België, Coolia 38 Supplement.
www.mycobank.com

Macroscopic Key:
See Macroscopic Key of Earthstars on this site.

Foto:Viltige aardster (Geastrum saccatum), Meijendel, 7 jan. 2012