Every year I’m fascinated by the fungi that spring up in our local woodland.
Into the woods
Ganoderma
A bracket fungus that is often tougher than the wood on which it grows.
Polypore
Another sort of bracket fungus
Meripilaceae
Lenzites betulina
I think that this is the Birch mazegill found on decaying birch and other deciduous trees.
Ganoderma sessile
I spotted this Artist’s bracket close to the park entrance and it really is the most spectacular of this year’s fungi finds.
Shaggy parasol
The Chlorophyll brunneum is one of the more consistently-identifiable fungi in this collection. It can be found growing in gardens as well as forests. The can cause allergic reactions.
Pluteus salicinius
This is possibly a willow shield mushroom. It’s supposedly toxic and can cause hallucinations, which is probably why it was the only one of its kind I found on the open playing field.
Black bulgar
Bulgaria inquinans is also known as Rubber buttons or Poor man’s liquorice, but can cause allergic reactions.
Dark honey mushroom
Long-lived Armillaria can grow for thousands of years and damage swathes of woodland.
Armillaria mellea
A more familiar sort of honey fungus. This one grows in one of the grass verges in my road.
Candlesnuff fungus
Also known as Stag’s horn fungus, Xylaria hypoxolon is associated with decaying oak
Stereaceae
This is one of the family of crusts, which decompose wood or leaf litter for their sustenance.
Bonnet mushrooms
I’m pretty pleased with this picture of another sort of mycenacea but it seems difficult to identify definitively.
Bonnet mushrooms
I liked this formation of tiny Mycenaceae as they climbed up this tree.
More bonnet mushroms
The orange mushroom caps against the blackened wood is a pleasing contrast.
Yet more Bonnet mushrooms
Then following day I found these growing in a clump with darker-coloured mushrooms so I think they’re all Bonnet mushrooms.
Fat Jack
I think this is a species of Suillus, that grows underneath Douglas firs. In this case the fir tree is long gone, and the fruiting body looked like a couple of yellow leaves on the grass verge but the pore formation is striking.
Since becoming a dog person, autumn has been my favourite season. I love to walk my boys as the colours change around me, and there is always lots to take pictures of.
I always find myself marvelling at the strange forms of fungi in the woods. I don’t come from a mushrooming culture but I’ve sometimes come across people of Eastern European heritage out with their mushroom baskets in our old woodland.
I find the variety of colours and myriad forms remarkable. This year the weather has been mild and wet, very conducive to fungi fruiting.
I haven’t had many hands free for my proper camera this year, as I’m pushing the dogbuggy and holding Raffles’s lead, so these phone camera pictures will have to do. I’ve used two separate plant identifier apps but it seems that making a definitive identification is really difficult. Please do suggest the correct species if you know better.
0 Comments