During my recent walks to marvel at the autumn colours of the Beautiful Beeches of Cwm George in Dinas Powys, I noticed that one of the Beech trees had, at some time in the past, succumbed to the ravages of time and weather and, where once a majestic giant stood tall, there was now a large, crumbling stump.

As well as a thick covering of fallen leaves, the greens of moss, ivy and a thin clump of grass, the stump was providing a home – and food – to fungi, a thriving colony of Sulphur tuft (Hypholoma fasciculare), one of our most common wood-rotters. I’m sure this is a fungus almost all my followers will have seen.