26 Friday May 2023
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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
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≈ Comments Off on Wobbling no more
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
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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
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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
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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!
05 Friday Aug 2022
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During Monday’s local meander I was hugely surprised to spot this humongous fungus, though I shouldn’t have been. Dryad’s saddle (Polyporus squamosus) is actually one of the first bracket fungi to appear each year, often sprouting its saddle-shaped ledges during the summer months when you’d least expect fungi to appear. This one was in a shady woodland, in an area less affected by the scorching sun that’s parched much of the land around here, so it was certainly a much more fungi-friendly location.
02 Saturday Oct 2021
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Happy UK Fungi Day 2021! We have heavy rain here and it’s forecast to last all day. Being something of a wet weather wimp, I’m not heading out on a fungi hunt so have only some puffballs to offer.
But I shouldn’t say ‘only’, as puffballs are fungi that many people will be able to find for themselves, and I think they’re rather stunning. Just look at their amazing textured surface, especially on the smallest, youngest specimen, above left. Though that looks quite spiny to me, I think these are all Common puffballs (Lycoperdon perlatum), as opposed to Spiny puffballs (Lycoperdon echinatum).
Puffballs lack gills from which to release their spores; instead, their surface is covered with tiny pores through which spores can be released to the wind. Of course, if the surface becomes damaged and rips open, as in my final photo, spores can be released en masse, and we might expect to see even more of these sculptural beauties in the future.
17 Friday Jan 2020
I know we usually speak of starry skies rather than starry soils but, three years ago, when I still lived in Cardiff, I found this one small patch of dirt, ’neath towering conifers in a local cemetery, where the stars could be found emerging from the soil.
These Collared earthstars are the reason for the name of this blog: they show how amazing things can be found in everyday places if we only look; they show how incredible Nature is; they inspired me to write this blog, to try to get people to open their eyes to the beauty our world has to offer, even ten minutes’ walk from home.
This cemetery is no longer managed with wildlife in mind – it is overly neatened and tidied – so I was particularly delighted, during a recent walk, to find these earthstars had escaped the over enthusiast strimming and pruning and scraping and chopping of the council’s operatives. Fingers crossed they continue to thrive.
27 Friday Dec 2019
It was so misty and soggy out today that I could hear more than I could see, particularly as my specs were alternately splattered with raindrops or steamed up.
Yet, these gorgeous fungi were impossible to miss, a burst of golden orange amongst the drab browns and greys and greens.
These are very slippery, soggy examples of Velvet shanks (Flammulina velutipes).
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.
