The Giant Polypore

The Giant Polypore, Meripilus giganteus, is giant and has many pores on its underside. It’s also called the Black-Staining Polypore because, well, you know.

It’s growing in the grass of my local park. I’m very excited by that. There was a huge tree there and yet there is no trace of it now. It’s been cut down, the stump ground out and the soil replaced so it looks as if it was never there. The roots, however, have other ideas and are rotting spectacularly under the soil and fruiting a whole variety of different species. I’m still working on identifying the rest of them.

I pop back the next day to get better photographs and the whole lot have disappeared. What pointless environmental vandalism. The grass hasn’t just been mown, every trace of the fungi has been destroyed. It’s tragic we still think it’s acceptable to kill the natural world.