At the September meeting Jim Clark brought in some stems of Juncus squarrosus (Heath Rush) from the moor at Harehope. Many of the fruiting heads had small white cigar-shaped structures and he wondered what they were.
After considering fungal infections such as Ergot, I had a hunch that they might be moth-related, so I went up on to our moor at Beanley and found the same phenomenon on Heath Rush and also on J. effusus (Soft Rush) and J. conglomeratus (Compact Rush). I took a couple of photos and sent one to Alan Fairclough with my query about whether these were micro-moth structures.
Alan was quickly able to identify them as the larval cases of a micro moth called Coleophora alticolella. Or at least it is probably that species - the other two possibilities are much rarer and a firm diagnosis can only be made by dissecting out the genitalia of the adult moths.
I'm sure there is a likelihood that these larval cases appear each year on the rushes, but neither Jim nor I had noticed them before. Thanks Alan!
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