The Fungi Diaries

    One thing that never fails to amaze me is the beautiful lighting effects that mother nature uses for her spring and summer show. Being in the woods and forests on fungi hunts I get to see for myself how the light plays with the trees and their leaves.    Early spring mornings or summer afternoons, each has their own way of lighting the woodland.      It's like each path through the forest has huge green chandeliers hanging above your head and whats ever better is the fact that these beautiful light sorces change colours as autumn arrives.    Next time your out walking the woods on a  lovely summer day, raise your eyes and take note of the light show mother nature has lit for you.

    I really can't explain why but finding Earthball (Scleroderma citrinum) always interests me. The way they look, smell and I guess knowing they are poisonous adds to it.     Some people confuse earthballs for Puffballs but when young the inside of an earthball will be black or purple, the puffball tho would when young be completely white inside. Also the earthball has a far thicker scaly skin.      When the earthball matures the interior becomes powdery which are the spores. Then the skin will eventually split to relese the spores rather like a puffball will, puffing out small clouds of spores when hit by rain or leaf litter.    They are mainly found in woodland but I have found then on mossy grassed areas also. Mostly found in one's and two's but can be in large groups as well. When seen they have a very potato shape and they don't have a stem like most fungi, they have only a a few mycelial roots at the base.     These are a co...

   Yesterday morning I took a ride over to Snettisham Woods and boy was I glad I did. If this trip is anything to go by Snettisham in autumn must be amazing as it's July and already I'm taking hundreds of fungi pictures.    It had been a week since I was last there and what a difference, really puts my trip to the Warren to shame. Within 20 yards of the carpark I spotted a huge group of Common Earthballs (Scleroderma citrinum), all around a few oaks trees. The area was a little mossy and had plenty of leaf litter, the perfect conditions for these lovely strange fungi.    Soon I was walking towards a big group of Beech trees and spotted a great group of Amethyst Deceivers, some tiny but most large enough to spot from a few yards away. This is the second group I've spotted in this area and being only July I'm sure there will be more yet. I do love these little purple fellas, one of the fungi that adds colour to the forest floor.    Still there are D...

    Now I'm going to be really honest here. On Monday morning I decided to call at the village playing field while on my cycle as it had been nearly a week since I last gave it a search. And I found my best ever find so far in the short time I've been addicted to kingdom fungi.    After spotting some old Chicken of the woods on a cherry tree and a nice group of Field Mushrooms I headed for my favourite end. It's an area that last autumn produced a number of different fungi including Milkcaps and some beautiful White saddle fungi. As I reached that end of the playing field I started spotting small fungi then a wonderful big Blusher, which was a bonus.      Then I saw what looked more like a flower standing in a small group, it was a mushroom but one with amazing shape and a slightly pink shade. After taking pictures I headed off home to do some research and with the help of the kind guys in the UK fungi facebook group was amazed to discover it was a Pin...

    The rains and mild nights seem to be a magical marriage as far as fungi are concerned. Every day there seem to be more appearing, in fact the village seems to be a mushroom haven. The playing field has started to produce and Blunt's Orchard being home to both Dryads Saddle and Chicken of the Woods.     Some mornings I cycle to Emneth where the churchyard is my main target, tho their large playing field may be worth a search or two. I've even found the river bank in Outwell is home to a few early summer fungi, the odd field mushroom included.      Hopefully as summer continues and the autumn months start to collect on the horizon I will tick off a good number.

    This morning I had a two hour fungi hunt in Wild Ken Hill wood and a very enjoyable hunt it turned out to be.    The last couple of days had given us yet more rain showers all of which as improved the number of fungi appearing in the wood,  with I'm sure many more to come. The weather was perfect this morning, a nice breeze, some nice cloud cover along with some nice sunny spells.    On my last visit I had found my first Dead Mans Fingers (Xylaria polymorpha), mature examples but I was still over the moon. I had noted the group of Beech trees and was going to return to have a closer look round, if there was one small group then there must be more and boy was I correct.    I reached the area and within minutes I was on my knees photographing more fingers, this time much younger and larger groups. It got to the stage where I was finding them around the base of every other tree, they were everywhere. It always amazes me how one can wait ages...

    Odd people have mentioned how after reading my blog or seeing my fungi pictures on facebook they have started to notice the odd mushroom while out walking, so I just thought it may be of help if I mention how I search.     The first thing I learnt was never be affraid to walk off path. Unless you're searching in a park or wood where the owners have a "stay on the path" rule, always try walking through the wood itself, between the trees and through the undergrowth. This as given me great results, that and my second tip of always walking slowly, this of course helps spot the smaller fungi but also will help you understand the wood. A forest floor has it's own world going on, you will notice how  the young plants delevope, the insect life that live there, the beautiful mosses and lichen that nestle around trees, roots and rocks and of course finally the magical kingdom of fungi. So please take your time, you really will start finding more that way.   ...

    North Norfolk woods just keep on giving and yet another first came my way this week. While walking under the giant Beech trees in my local wood, there bursting up through the carpet of beech nut shells was a near perfect example of The Blusher (Amanita rubescens).     Another first encounter for me and one that I took my time to enjoy. I'm really starting to understand the draw that mycology has, learning how kingdom fungi interacts with many of our native trees and plants.    As I sit here writing this post more gentle rain falls over the fens of East Anglia, so I can only hope this points towards more fungi appearing over the next few days.     If any of you are even a little interested in fungi and it's very magical world then I suggest you get yourself a good fungi guide and get out in your local woods or countryside and start looking, I promise you'll get hooked.

    How glad am I that I listened to one of the top fungi guys when he said always go slow and search away from the paths as often as possible.    Today I was lucky enough to spend a couple of hours at Snettisham Wood in North Norfolk and as normal slowly walked exploring well off the path which once more paid off. Another first for me and one which I thought would take a long while to capture but happy it didn't. While looking around a few of the beautiful big beech trees I spotted my first group of Dead Mans Fingers (Xylaria polymorpha), a large group of around 20 fingers, all very mature and really dark.     The fingers were short which was a little disappointing, but still put a huge smile on my face as they were high on my "wants" list. This fungi has a real spooky look and were named because they can look like the fingers of the dead trying to reach up from the forest floor.    It seems that the rains last week and last weekend did inde...

 A very nice mixture this week, the rains did their work and the fungi season is officially underway.