10 Sunday Nov 2019
Crust fungi are notoriously difficult to identify and I’m not at all sure which this is, though one possibility is Toothed crust (Basidioradulum radula). Despite my uncertainty I thought I would share some photos as its shape and form are wonderfully sculptural and more than a little beautiful, I feel.
14 Monday Oct 2019
Waxcaps are my favourite fungi but they can be difficult to identify. Sometimes the colour helps, but there are several species of a reddish-orange hue. As these have quite a coarse upper surface on the caps, I thought at first that they might be Fibrous waxcaps (Hygrocybe intermedia) but, as these were at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, I’m wondering if they might be Hygrocybe calciphilia, which are smaller and grow on calcareous grassland. I really need to check their features more thoroughly in future. What I do know for sure is how lovely they are!
12 Saturday Oct 2019
Tags
autumn fungi, British fungi, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Entoloma incanum, fungus, Mousepee pinkgill
What’s in a name? That which we call a Mousepee pinkgill
By any other name would still smell like mouse pee!
(with apologies to William Shakespeare)
Truth be known, I have no idea what mouse pee smells like (and these fungi had been rained on for several days so the smell may well have dissipated) but I’m fairly sure that is what these fungi are. The greenish stem is a bit of a giveaway, and these are definitely not Parrot waxcaps, which are the only other green-stemmed fungi I know (though that, in itself, doesn’t mean there aren’t others).
You can read up on the Mousepee pinkgill (Entoloma incanum) on the most excellent First Nature website here.
05 Saturday Oct 2019
Tags
#NationalFungiDay, bracket fungi, British fungi, Candlesnuff, fungus, National Fungi Day, oysterling fungi, Stump puffballs, Sulphur tuft, waxcaps
As today was National Fungi Day in Britain and we’ve had good quantities of the rain needed to stimulate fungal growth, I caught the train in to Cardiff today for a fungi foray around Heath Park and the new part of Cathays Cemetery. Here are some of the fungi I found …
27 Thursday Dec 2018
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.
21 Friday Dec 2018
I’ve been collecting these images of Turkey tail fungi (Trametes versicolor) for the past couple of months, thinking they would be appropriate for the last Fungi Friday before Christmas seeing as how a lot of people eat turkey for their Christmas dinner.
So, merry feasting … but not on these!
14 Friday Dec 2018
Tags
#FungiFriday, black-and-white fungi, British fungi, diversity of fungi, fungal diversity, fungus, Heath Park, shapes of fungi, textures of fungi
I took myself off for a fungi foray around the woodland at Cardiff’s Heath Park today as it’s usually a good place to find a wide variety of fungi. And, rather than post colour photos of my finds, I thought I’d convert them all to black and white as that shows, I think, the fungal world’s amazing diversity of shapes and textures.
07 Friday Dec 2018
28 Sunday Oct 2018
Here’s a fungus I can actually identify! This is the Butter cap, a name that’s so much easier to say than its scientific name Rhodocollybia butyracea.
Thanks to the most excellent First Nature website, I can tell you that Rhodocollybia is from rhodo, meaning ‘pink’ (a reference to the pinkish tinge of the mushroom’s gills), and collybia means ‘small coin’, while the epithet butyracea means ‘buttery’ (but not in taste – it’s a reference to the greasiness of the cap).
12 Friday Oct 2018
