Wild Christmas, day 3

27 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by sconzani in fungi, nature, walks, winter

Tags

bracket fungus, Cathays Cemetery, Clitocybe fungi, club fungus, coral fungus, earthstar, fungi foray, fungus, inkcap, mushroom, Redlead roundhead, waxcaps

I’m currently taking part in the local Wildlife Trusts’ #7DaysofWildChristmas challenge. This ‘is a week-long challenge to do one wild thing a day from the 25th to the 31st of December’. For me a challenge like this is easy peasy ’cause I try to live my whole life as one long wild challenge but I like to support these initiatives to help to inspire other people to put more Nature and wildness in their lives. Believe me, in a world as crazy as ours currently is, you will feel better for it.

For today’s challenge I spent about four hours at Cardiff’s Cathays Cemetery, hunting for fungi to photograph (not forage) in both the old and new sections of the cemetery. I figured that, after all the rain we’ve had recently, I should be able to find one or two nice things. I wasn’t disappointed.

The coral that grows above the ground

01 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by sconzani in autumn, fungi, nature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

coral fungus, fungus, Ramaria stricta, Upright Coral Fungus

Once upon a time there was a coral that decided it didn’t like living under the ocean. It didn’t like living on hard unyeilding rocks; it didn’t like always having dirty sand being washed around its clean white branches by the harsh ocean waves; and it certainly didn’t like having all manner of little fishes ducking and diving around and nibbling at its extremities. So, it rebelled! It upped roots and moved to the land, to a place where it could be sheltered by beech trees and conifers, where it could spread its delicate root system through the welcoming piles of buried wood and leaf litter, where it could stretch its little branches straight up towards the sky.

161001-ramaria-stricta-1

Nah, not really! This is a coral fungus, probably Ramaria stricta, the Upright Coral fungus. It is quite common in Britain, and can also be found from late summer through the autumn months in much of Europe and in North America. It looks for all the world like the coral you find on reefs in tropical seas and oceans around the world, hence my fanciful flight of imagination earlier.