I found these Split gill fungi (Schizophyllum commune) last November but had so many other things to share at that point that these didn’t make the cut.

I’d found the same species on another tree in this Cardiff Park once before but this fallen Oak and the huge colony of Split gill fungi growing on it were more than I’d ever seen before. It’s a fungus that always intrigues me, with its bland furry upper side that gives no hint of the stunning sculptural structure beneath.

I don’t usually reference Wikipedia in my blogs but I rather like their description of today’s fungus: ‘The mushroom resembles undulating waves of tightly packed corals or a loose Chinese fan.’

This is Split gill fungus (Schizophyllum commune), a species I’ve only seen once before, back in 2016, so I was both amazed and captivated when I found these growing on a huge old Oak tree in Cardiff’s Heath Park yesterday. From above, this fungus is a round hairy mass that doesn’t really look like a fungus at all. The magic happens when you look at the underside of the cap and see the stunning sculptural nature of the mushroom’s gills.