One day last week I went for a good mooch around Cardiff’s Heath Park, very pleased to immediately see that the ground was looking much damper than on my previous visit, though still not as wet as it usually is in the park’s area of woodland. However, the good news is that the rain we have had in the past couple of weeks has encouraged fungi to start raising their fruit bodies.

This is where I found the Dyer’s mazegill I blogged about last week, and this is also where I found these much-nibbled, still lovely Ruby boletes (Hortiboletus rubellus, previously Boletus rubellus), my first time seeing this species. I knew they were boletes from their chunky shape, and because they had pores rather than gills, though I didn’t recognise the species. It was the fact that they turned blue when touched that clinched their identification.

The First Nature website entry for this species gives the following information:

• • usually grow in groups rather than singly
  • often found on woodland edges, and low-nutrient grassland, under deciduous trees, especially Oaks
  • fruiting from early July to the end of September, though only occasional in southern Britain and rare or absent in the north.