Mushrooms

Dry rot’s wild cousin

I’ve owned a house which had dry rot. It’s not something I’d wish on anyone. Having the fungus, Serpula lacrymans, creeping through …

There are Waxcaps in the meadows in Devon: Meadow Waxcaps. I’m looking through some old photographs of fungi and see these Meadow …

Looking through my old mushroom photographs there’s a very distinctive one; it’s Pholiota squarrosa, the Shaggy Scalycap which I found in Bovey …

Killerton is an unusual National Trust property. Unlike many of the others its story doesn’t appear to involve slavery, death and exploitation …

There’s an interesting fungus on this piece of dead wood. I’ve always known it as Cramp Balls, or Daldinia concentrica, but my friend …

Orley Common is a true common – absolutely no-one owns it or has ever owned it – it belongs to us all. …

The Common Earthball is also known by the charming common name of the Pigskin Poison Puffball.

There’s something otherworldly about mushrooms. They’re more closely related to animals than they are to plants. A very different kind of life …

The fields on the ride to Noup are covered in Lawyers’ Wigs, no not the wigs of lawyers, but a mushroom also …

In the disabled parking area of the 124th Orkney County Show at Bignold Park I spot a fairy ring. I’m always distracted …

A long walk along the cliffs to Noup Head. Giant mushroom fairy rings lie like targets on the fertile hillsides.