Lawyer’s Wigs – forty years ago in my nature notebooks

Shaggy Ink Caps are a common fungus. They are white with brown scales on the cap. Here’s the entry I made in my nature notebooks forty years ago:

They’re fascinating because they deliquesce; over the course of a day or so they go from being solid mushroom flesh to a black liquid ‘ink’ which disperses the spores. Here’s a fresh group of Shaggy Ink Caps:

Here’s what they look like when they’ve started to deliquesce:

And finally when all but the stalks have gone: