After a fungus foray. 23 September 2015 An air of fairy-tale hung about Warth Fish Pond. A high gate stood unlocked and open to admit us. Bulrush fringed the water and wild angelica rose stately in the wet border of the wood. Elderberry l eaves assumed autumn colour. I heard coot on the pond, nuthatch and great spotted woodpecker in the trees. A peaceful place to fish, to sit looking out upon the water listening to birds on a summer’s evening. This cloudy morning in a September wood was rather gloomy. Unearthed, our collected fungi showed in a burst of colour. What did we find?
I found red campion with flowers are seed-heads together. Brambles flowering and with ripe fruit and green fruit then may never ripen. Drupes, they're called, not berries. Don’t eat them after Michaelmas Day, 29th September. Folk-lore has it that the Archangel Michael threw the Devil out of Heaven and he landed in a prickly bramble bush and cursed it. After that date yeasts and chemicals begin to ferment the fruits, making them taste unpleasant- that’s the biology that prompted the warning tale.
A true naturalist takes time, is tentative in identifying species . Our mycologist searched the woods knife in hand, cutting a cross-section of a toadstool to watch for colour change. To be sure, he’d put the specimen under a microscope to look at spores. I found I was sometimes more interested in habit, in reproduction , than in precise ID. There are changes in nomenclature of fungi. Names aren’t always what they used to be.
Some spores are rain-dispersed, birds disperse them and so do field mice but the wind takes them furthest. Toadstools grow long stipes to raise the fungus into the air so the wind may carry spores further away.
A true naturalist takes time, is tentative in identifying species . Our mycologist searched the woods knife in hand, cutting a cross-section of a toadstool to watch for colour change. To be sure, he’d put the specimen under a microscope to look at spores. I found I was sometimes more interested in habit, in reproduction , than in precise ID. There are changes in nomenclature of fungi. Names aren’t always what they used to be.
Some spores are rain-dispersed, birds disperse them and so do field mice but the wind takes them furthest. Toadstools grow long stipes to raise the fungus into the air so the wind may carry spores further away.
Hedgehog fungus with hooks, not pores or gills
These lovely puffballs grew out of the earth in the middle of the track through the wood, so my friend Liz stood by to be sure we did not trample on them as we passed.
Fly agaric is not uncommon but some years it’s elusive. We came upon clusters of these striking fungi in grass beneath the trees. What creature has taken these great bites of fly agaric?
Our mycologist guide carried a knife, a field-guide, a hand lens and a collecting basket lined with egg boxes
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