Firstly, I want to admit that I didn’t discover this unusual fungus unaided. The previous night I was inputting that day’s finds in to the database of my local environmental records centre when I noticed another recorder had entered this find and, never having seen it myself, I took a note of the grid reference so that I was able to plot the site on a map. The location was a park in north Cardiff where I’d previously seen some nice autumn fungi so I decided to visit the following day.
This is Wood cauliflower (Sparassis crispa), named for its rather superficial resemblance to the vegetable of the same name, though cauliflowers are produced on the stalks of plants growing in soil and this fungus grows on the roots of conifers, particularly pines. Also, though the fruiting bodies are off-white when they first emerge, they quickly turn cream like the ones I saw, and eventually rot to a brown mush.
Fortunately for the tree, the fungus is not a killer; instead, it restricts its root damage sufficiently for the tree to continue producing timber for many years – a parasite that limits its appetite to protect its food source. My guidebook tells me these cauliflowers are produced annually between July and October, and a quick look at their distribution map on iRecord shows records from throughout the UK, presumably wherever conifers will grow.
