Drumboe fungi

A trip to Drumboe Wood is always guaranteed to turn up something good, and today was no exception. I intended to check out any hoverflies and tachinids that I saw, but the rain put paid to that idea.

I did find a few interesting plants in flower, including the wonderfully-named Enchanter's Nightshade:

But the fungi I found in a drizzly 15-20 minutes are the stars of the show. This is The Blusher - Amanita rubescens:

Amanitas should generally be regarded as poisonous, or at least toxic, and some are deadly.

Sulphur Tufts grow on dead wood, and are always found in clusters:

The visible parts of fungi are the fruit-bodies, which produce the reproductive spores. The actual fungus is either under the ground or in the substrate, which might be buried dead wood, or the live roots of trees. Some fungi even use buried moth pupae as a substrate. Because the substrate is usually long-lasting, the fruit-bodies are often found in the same location from year to year. These Collybia dryophila have been in exactly the same spot for perhaps 5 years:

Many fungi form a mycorrhyzal association exclusively with one species of tree. This Birch Bolete is never found far from a Birch tree:

The Beechwood Sickener is another mycorrhizal fungus, this time on Beech. These fruit-bodies show the usual attentions of slugs and small rodents, indicating that they don't suffer the same after-effects of eating them that humans do. Even a sniff of these can have a strongly gagging effect.
But if you're early enough, then you just might find a rare pristine specimen:
The closely-related Charcoal Burner has a looser association with broad-leaf trees:
My first little Mycena of the year, growing through Rhytidiadelphus moss:

This is The Stump: a very old Beech stump that I have been following over the years. It is home to an ever-increasing number of lichens, mosses, ferns and fungi, and now has two small Birch trees growing on it. This is another fine example of how the succession of lichens, fungi and mosses can turn dead wood into soil which is able to sustain higher plants:
And just as I was reaching the car park, I saw a back-lit specimen of the Speckled Wood butterfly:

First fungal foray

I paid a visit to Drumboe wood, which is usually quite good for fungi. (If you're looking for good fungi, then choose the oldest deciduous woodand you can find, the older the better: some fungi are successional, and it can take centuries for those down the dependency chain to grace a woodland with their presence.)

One of the most elegant fungi is the Porcelain Fungus - Oudemansiella mucida. The cap is so thin it transmits light through the pearly flesh. Pictures hardly do them justice:

These only grow on dead Beech branches, and usually a metre or so above ground level. They make a wonderful undershot with light behind them:


I find these Cortinarius sp. in the same place every year (this is a common experience with fungi, since their mycelium is static, and they often pop up the same spot year after year.) No id, yet (Corts are a notoriously difficult group). The cap is extremely viscid:


The Common Earthball - Scleroderma citrinum - is easier to identify:


One of the most common Russulas is Russula ochroleuca: I find it on virtually every foray. It's a broadleaf associate.

A record shot of the Blusher - Amanita rubescens. There were quite a few of these, all knocked over by hungry slugs or snails. This fungus is poisonous, as are most of the Amanitas, and some are deadly.

Talking about deadly fungi, you might have seen in the press that a well known writer was poisoned (and how!.....serious - perhaps permanent - kidney damage) by the deadly fungus Cortinarius speciosus. He is apparently a regular mushroom hunter and was on holiday in the north of Scotland when the incident happened. I found the best pictures on the web to be:

http://www.apasseggionelbosco.it/forum/uploads/post-193-1143719168.jpg

and

http://www.apasseggionelbosco.it/forum/uploads/post-193-1143719200.jpg

Now I simply wouldn't eat that regardless of what I thought it was (it shouts out Cort to me), so it must have been confused with something else. The Chanterelle has been suggested as a possible confusion species. Not to my eyes! I suppose it just might have been taken along with a batch of Lactarius sp, some of which are edible, or maybe Brown Roll Rim (which has recently been reclassified as deadly, anyway!).

The bottom line is: don't eat wild fungi unless you absolutely know what you're doing. I play safe with fungi that can't reasonably be confused with anything else...Chanterelle, Horn of Plenty, Cep, Hedgehog. I have also taken a few Millers (the best of all fungi) in my time. But that's one where you have to be absolutely absolutely sure, because Clitocybe dealbata looks very like it and grows in the same sort of environments, and is deadly. Smell is the clue with the Miller....it smells of meal, although I reckon I can get notes of metallic fish oil, too.