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.
29 Friday Nov 2024
Posted in fungi
I was struggling to think of what I would blog about today so, for my daily walk, I headed to an area where I thought I should be able to find some fungi. And so it proved. In fact, much to my surprise and delight, I found today’s subject first, then went on to find two other relative rarities at other sites during my meander. This was a very good day for fungi!
Today’s fungus is Wrinkled peach (Rhodotus palmatus), still beautiful even though the five specimens I found were all a little past their best. They are perfectly named: their pale pinkish peachy colour is unmistakeable, as is the crinkled skin on their caps.
And, as they grow exclusively on Elm trees, which have been devastated by Dutch elm disease, these fungi are now quite a rarity so I was particularly lucky to spot them.
10 Sunday Dec 2023
Posted in fungi
I have never seen as many earthstars as I did during a visit to a Cardiff Cemetery a few weeks ago. There must have been over 50 Collared earthstars (Geastrum triplex) growing under the pine trees at the entrance to the cemetery, a location where I’ve never before seen them despite many visits over several years, so it was a very special sight indeed. And as these are the fungi that originally inspired the name of this blog, I felt I had to include them in this end-of-year countdown.
18 Friday Aug 2023
Here’s another sign that autumn’s come early this year. In previous years I’ve not seen these waxcaps in my area until very late September, mostly during October, but this year they’re fruiting now, at least a month earlier than usual.
These are Persistent waxcaps (Hygrocybe acutoconica). At first glance, with their conical caps and yellow-orange colour, they look very similar to Blackening waxcaps (Hygrocybe conica) but these don’t blacken. Persistents are the only waxcaps I find locally so it’s always a pleasure to see them, even if it does mean an early autumn.
26 Friday May 2023
Posted in fungi
What a cracking pair these were, both at least 30 cms across, fresh, boldly marked, rigid, an imposing sight!
These are Dryad’s saddles (Polyporus squamosus), named for their saddle-like shape that one might, with a liberal sprinkling of imagination, visualise being used by the tree nymphs for their travels through their forest domain.
03 Friday Mar 2023
Posted in fungi
I was hesitant with my identification of this fungus at first as previous examples I’ve seen have been yellow and jelly-like – poke them and they wobble.
Then I read, on the First Nature website, that ‘in dry weather this fungus becomes a hard orange bracket’. Also, this particular fungus feeds on other fungi, crusts in the Peniophora genus, and I couldn’t see any crusts on this branch. First Nature explains it again:
Very little or none of the Peniophora may be visible; this is because Tremella mesenterica feeds on the mycelium of the Peniophora fungus, and that can be deep inside the timber rather than on its surface. The fruiting body of the crust fungus does not even have to be present, therefore, and so it may look as though Yellow Brain is feeding directly on the host wood.
So, reassured by the website’s explanations, I believe I can confidently say this is Yellow brain fungus (Tremella mesenterica). Happy Fungi Friday!
13 Friday Jan 2023
Posted in fungi
Velvet shanks (Flammulina velutipes) always look to me like they would taste delicious, like layers of crumpets dripping in runny golden honey. And, though I’ve never tried them, they are indeed edible; the commercially grown versions (also known as Enoki) can be purchased in cans and jars, very occasionally fresh in some supermarkets and many specialist food shops.
30 Friday Dec 2022
Posted in fungi
The pinkish-purple colour of this fungus makes its identification a little easier than many fungi, and is reflected in the epithet of its scientific name, Chondrostereum purpureum. Its common name, Silverleaf (or Silver leaf) fungus, comes from the damage the fungus can do as a parasite of some species of fruit trees.
I’ve only ever seen it on dead wood, as in these photos, where it starts off looking like a crust spread across the surface of the sawn end of a tree, then, as it grows, develops into brackets, with a hairy upper surface and white edges.
18 Friday Nov 2022
Posted in fungi
I initially thought these were a type of funnel fungi, one of the several Clitocybe species perhaps but, as I’m only too well aware that I’ve forgotten most of what I ever knew – never much – about fungi identification, I consulted an expert, Emma [@Coalspoilfungi on Twitter]. Turns out I was wrong – no surprise there!
These are Brown rollrims (Paxillus involutus) and they were massive, the biggest at least 12 inches across. They were growing on a grassy verge, next to a very busy local road. Emma told me: ‘They would have been viscid when wet, but when dry, [are] the texture of silky soft pig leather. Gills, cap and stem bruise easily deep red /orange to dark brown / Blackening slowly.’ Fungi are just so fascinating!
earthstar 
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