Spotted Toughshanks

There are fungi I don’t recognise in the woods. They look as if they’ve been given a little too much bicarbonate of soda and put in too hot an oven:

Rhodocollybia maculata - Spotted Toughshank - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)

They also have very distinctive ridged stems:

Rhodocollybia maculata - Spotted Toughshank - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)

They’re so distinctive I’m sure I’ll be able to identify them easily when I get home.

Rhodocollybia maculata - Spotted Toughshank - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)

No such luck. I’m struggling, looking through numerous books, and finding nothing like them. Eventually I have to ask for help, like a man finally having to consult the instructions after admitting failure to work a new electronic device.

They are Spotted Toughshank, Rhodocollybia maculata. Here they are from James Sowerby’s Coloured figures of English fungi or mushrooms from 1797:

James Sowerby - Coloured figures of English fungi or mushrooms - Rhodocollybia maculata

Mine weren’t as spotted. That was a toughshank.

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