Ceps, Porcini, Penny Buns
It’s time for strange unearthly shapes to emerge from the damp autumnal ground. Yes, it’s mushroom season. This year I’ve been fabulously …
Dryad’s Saddle
The Dryad’s Saddle fungus is one I remember from my childhood. It can grow huge. It has a beautiful scaly skin and …
Fly Agarics at Bovey Heathfield
Amanita muscaria; the Fly Agaric. Magical, aren’t they?
Shaggy Parasols at Emsworthy Mire
There are Parasol mushrooms in the fields at Emsworthy Mire. They are huge, but not as huge as the dinner-plate sized Macrolepiota …
Waxcaps on the wane
We’re on a trip to north Devon, near Lynmouth, on an organised fungus foray. I’m particularly excited about the grassland here as …
Porcelain fungus
I stop the car in a small valley on Dartmoor. There’s an enormous fallen Beech tree and it’s covered with fungi. Glistening …
Waxcaps
Waxcap fungi thrive on damp, ‘unimproved’ grassland, or rather grassland which hasn’t be ruined by artificial fertiliser or herbicides. A trip to …
Dusky Puffballs at Emsworthy Mire
There’s time for a quick trip to Emsworthy Mire on Dartmoor and I’m delighted with the Dusky Puffballs there. Their scientific name …
Pestle Puffballs, Hedgehogs and Chanterelles
There are Pestle Puffballs in the churchyard outside my house in Devon. At least that’s what I think they are. I’d better …
Why do so many fungi grow in churchyards?
Churchyards are often great places for finding fungi. Why? I suspect it’s got to do with their relative protection from pesticides, herbicides …
The Yellow Stagshorn’s superpower
If coal is natural, why isn’t it still being produced now? How come we can burn coal and more isn’t being made …
False Death Caps and Ugly Milkcaps
There are many False Death Caps, Amanita citrinum, in the woods at the moment. Their strange white bodies litter the ground, eerie …
Brown Birch Boletes on Yarner Heath
While I’m searching for Parasitic Boletes I stumble across a Brown Birch Bolete. They’re lovely mushrooms. They have scaly stalks, small tubes …
The Deceiver
The Deceiver. It’s such a great name for a mushroom. It’s has depth, a backstory and a certain presence. I love it. …
Egghead Mottlegills at Hound Tor
A trip to Hound Tor on Dartmoor reveals a special fruiting sensation of Egghead Mottlegills, Panaeolus semiovatus, or at least that’s what I think they are. I’d probably need to destroy …
A fungus, the Ice Man and rotten wood that smells of green apples
There’s a common fungus growing on a birch tree in the woods. It’s called the Birch Bracket fungus. My friend Joe drinks …
Lordly Tree
There’s a particularly impressive oak tree in Abbotskerswell in South Devon. As the old joke says, it’s out standing in its field. …
Purple mushrooms on Dartmoor
I’m on an organised fungus foray on Dartmoor with the Devon Fungus Group and, yes, we are all exactly like you would …
Lumpy Brackets and boring beetles
There’s a Lumpy Bracket fungus in the woods at Fingle Bridge on Dartmoor. That’s its name; the Lumpy Bracket fungus. It has …
Yellowleg Bonnet
We’re having a field day. Or rather, I should say we’re having a woods day. We’re out having fun looking for as …
The difference between tasty soup and death
There’s a fungus growing on this rotten log in Yarner Wood on Dartmoor. It’s the Sheathed Woodtuft, Kuehneromyces mutabilis. It has wonderful circles …
A tight bundle
There’s a tight bundle of curiously coloured mushrooms on this dead wood. It’s Sulphur Tuft. That’s such a perfect name. Their yellow …
The Elfin Saddle
We’ve taken a trip to Alviano to see the birds in the forest and on the lake. We had a fabulous time …
Beautiful Brittlegills
There are many brightly coloured species of fungi in Yarner Woods. These are all Russulas, to use their scientific name, or Brittlegills …
A Bounty of Bay Boletes
The ground on Trendlebere Down is full of surprises at this time of year. In amongst the understory of bracken and bilberries …
Dead Man’s Fingers
I joined my local Natural History Society when I was 11 or 12 years old. It was full of retired men who …
Oakbug Milkcaps
Oak trees are our most common native tree. They host hundreds of species of insects because they’ve had the time to develop …
I highly recommend stroking a wild mushroom
I’m looking for a fungus. It’s not just any fungus, it’s a parasitic fungus which grows on another fungus. I’ve seen it …
The Cornish Pasty fungus
The Birch Polypore. Razor Strop Fungus. Birch Bracket. Like many fungi, this one has a range of strange and exotic folk names …
Westray Coast 50 – Day One
My adventures on the first of five days walking the entire coast of Westray.