10 Wednesday Dec 2025
Posted in fungi
I just checked – I haven’t posted any photos of earthstars since December 2023. As they were the inspiration for the name of this blog (though the name is also meant to encompass all the flora and fauna that are the environmental stars on this amazing Earth), I really think they should feature here at least once a year.
These particular Collared earthstars (Geastrum triplex) were photographed in both the old and new sections of Cardiff’s Cathays Cemetery last week.
09 Tuesday Dec 2025
Posted in fungi
Finding Date waxcaps fruiting on a local road verge on 15 October was, without a doubt, the highlight of 2025 as far as fungi finds go. What a treat they were, and, as with yesterday’s Choughs, completely unexpected, particularly in such an urban setting.
05 Friday Dec 2025
Posted in fungi
In fact, you probably wouldn’t want to eat the other form of tripe, the stomach lining of cows, pigs and sheep, either, unless you were desperate, and definitely not if, like me, you’re a vegetarian.
I’ve only ever seen Tripe fungus (Auricularia mesenterica) in a couple of different places before today, so it was good to add a new site to my list.
There’s one particular location I know, where the fungus can be seen year round on the stump of a long dead Elm tree, in summer looking just like a grouping of dried, shrivelled brackets but, in winter, when they’ve rehydrated, plump and hairy like these ones I found today.
The various species of Elm are where Tripe grows most commonly and, though today’s new location was a large fallen tree trunk that could have been any species of tree, I had previously found Wrinkled peach growing on it, another Elm-specific fungus.
21 Friday Nov 2025
Tags
bracket fungi, British fungi, Daedalea quercina, fungi on Oak, mazegill fungi, mazegills, Oak mazegill
I’m sure I must have seen these stunning bracket fungi, Oak mazegill (Daedalea quercina), before this week but I have no images of them on my laptop. Growing on a huge old fallen Oak – they always grow on Oak (i.e. Quercus species), hence the quercina epithet, consuming dead fallen and still standing trees and large branches, these brackets grow annually, eventually reaching a thickness of 10cm and a diameter of 20cm. And, as you can see from my photos, the fertile surface (i.e. the underside of the bracket, from which the spores are released) has maze-like channels, which explains the mazegill name.
Pat O’Reilly, in his book Fascinated by Fungi, explains that its generic name (Daedalea) refers to Daedalus, the legendary figure who supposedly designed the maze on ancient Crete, in which Pasiphaë, wife of King Minos, hid her offspring the Minotaur, half man and half bull.
O’Reilly’s book also includes a couple of other fascinating facts about Oak mazegill:
This fungus was valued by beekeepers who used the smoke from smouldering fruitbodies to anaesthetise bees. Once the bees had been calmed by the dense smoke, the beekeeper could open a hive and work on it without triggering painful panic reactions by the occupants.
The deep, hard-wearing channels make these tough and durable brackets very handy as combs for grooming horses – one of their traditional uses.
14 Friday Nov 2025
Orange peel (Aleuria aurantia) is a fungus I’ve not seen very often, despite it being officially classified as common. So, when, on a very grey, often drizzly day, I spotted a scattering of something bright orange on the ground in front of me, I initially thought some litter bug had thrown away the remains of their fruit. But no, this was the real thing, and there was more of it than I’d ever seen before.
My guide book says this fungus grows alongside paths and disturbed forest tracks, which is exactly where I found it, alongside a meandering path at the edge of the woodland in one of Cardiff’s parks.
Though it doesn’t look much like it in these photos, Orange peel is a cup fungus. The exterior of the cup is a paler shade of orange-beige and covered with fine down, whereas the interior is, as you can see, a vibrant orange.
The Orange peel I found had become wavy and twisted with age, and had been munched around the edges, probably by snails and slugs, but it was still a stunning sight.
07 Friday Nov 2025
Tags
British fungi, CHEG fungi groups, CHEGD fungi groups, Clavulinopsis corniculata, coral fungi, grassland fungi, Meadow coral
The clubs and corals, properly known as the Clavariacae, come in many shapes and colours; some are small, simple and singular, resembling worms standing upright in the grass, while others form in multi-branching clumps that really do resemble the corals you can find growing under the sea.
Today’s offerings slot somewhere in between the two, sometimes growing as individual stems but mostly in loose clumps of multi-branched stems that divide, like antlers, near the stem tops. Standing between 4 and 8cm tall, these lovely little yellow fungi are Meadow coral (Clavulinopsis corniculata).
Clavarioid fungi are usually found growing in unimproved grasslands and are one of the 4 (or 5) groups used to assess the conservation value of grasslands; the CHEG (or CHEGD) system assigns a value to the number of species of each of the fungal groups found at particular location (see this page on Wikipedia for a more detailed, though still simple explanation).
I found these examples of Meadow coral growing on a road verge that, presumably, was once grassland before houses and roads, a supermarket, a petrol station and a restaurant, and, of course, the ubiquitous car parks were built in the area.
When I spotted them, I was actually looking for the Hairy earthtongue fungi (Trichoglossum hirsutum, another of the CHEG/CHEGD fungi) I’ve found previously at this location. My disappointment at not finding any of those turned quickly to delight when I spotted the Meadow coral, which I don’t often find in my local area.
31 Friday Oct 2025
‘Tis All Hallows’ Eve and all round the globe
the spirits are rising to roam and to probe,
to spook and to scare,
while you wonder ‘Who’s there?’
With their white colour and partial resemblance to the classic ‘white sheet over the head with holes for eyes’ ghost imitation, these fungi I found on Wednesday in a local park seem particularly appropriate for Halloween. These are White saddle (Helvella crispa), fungi that grow at this time of year in damp soil in deciduous woodland, often alongside paths, which is exactly where I found these.
29 Wednesday Oct 2025
It’s been ages since I’ve seen Porcelain fungus (Oudemansiella mucida) so, though it was a bit sad to see an enormous old Beech tree had lost one of its huge branches, it was a real treat for me to see tiny bulb-shaped fungi emerging all over the wood.
There were hundreds of them, and I’ve just read on the First Nature website that this is due to the fact that ‘Oudemansiella mucida releases a powerful fungicide that deters or even annihilates competitors’, giving Porcelain fungus exclusive access to the nutrients of the fallen Beech.
Porcelain fungus is found exclusively on Beech, usually on dead or dying fallen branches on the ground but sometimes on dead branches high up in the canopy of an old tree.
The mucida in its scientific name refers to the slimy mucus that covers the upper sides of the caps of this fungus. And, though the idea of mucus might give a negative impression, these are stunning fungi, especially when the fruiting bodies are fully open. Their pure white colour and the translucence of their caps is where the common name Porcelain comes from.
24 Friday Oct 2025
I went looking for Fly agaric, the mushroom everyone recognises but which is surprisingly uncommon where I live; I found none but, almost immediately on arrival at north Cardiff’s Cefn Onn Park, I did spot this large log covered in small black button-like fungi.
These are the fruit of the fungus Black bulgar (Bulgaria inquinans), also known as Rubber buttons and Bachelor’s buttons. According to the First Nature website, they are known as Black Jelly Drops or Poor Man’s Licorice in the United States, though the site also cautions readers not to be fooled by those names – these fungi are not edible and may, indeed, be toxic.
As you can see in the photo above, the fruit bodies look a bit like short tacks; they start out flat on top but come to resemble little cups. The outer surface is, initially, brown and scaly looking but, as they age, they become black, blobby when wet, but tougher and rubbery when dry. Black bulgar is described as common, and can be seen, mostly on fallen Oaks but also on a few other tree species, from autumn through to spring.
22 Wednesday Oct 2025
Last week I went for a meander around Cathays Cemetery in Cardiff, looking for waxcaps. The cemetery is a SSSI (a Site of Special Scientific Interest) because of its waxcaps, and they are stunning. The SSSI designation is supposed to ensure the site is protected from environmental damage, and managed in a way that benefits the flora and/or fauna that resulted in its designation, but it doesn’t.
All of the beautiful waxcaps pictured in this post would have been destroyed by the end of that day because a council worker was cutting the grass. In fact, I only had time to check a couple of the uncut blocks within the grounds before they too were mown.
This is typical of Cardiff Council’s assault on the natural environment. They’ve been told by ecologists how the cemetery should be managed but they ignore that advice, cut when the waxcaps are fruiting, and leave the clippings.
This is a deliberate decision by the Council; and the situation could easily be remedied either by mowing the grass a little earlier or a little later in the year. And, if budget cuts mean they can’t afford to purchase a mower than removes the clippings, then they could co-ordinate the mowing with the cemetery Friends group and other voluntary groups to rake the clippings. But they don’t.
earthstar 
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