I rather suspected that this was going to be a good year for fungi and Ards rarely disappoints.
We spent a couple of hours wandering through ancient deciduous forest with occasional lumps of Spruce and found fungi of all kinds with almost every footstep. I din't manage to get too many photographs, as I was being pulled in four directions at once to see what people had discovered.
Asterophora parasitica was virtually everywhere, which is odd because I'd never seen it here before:
These are parasitic on dead Russulas and Lactarius, and you can just make out the shiny dead cap of the host underneath them.This little cluster of Sulphur Tuft was growing on a dead stump in one of the coniferous patches:
Some of the fungi we found are tiny. I have left my (dirty) thumbnail uncropped to give an indication of the size of this Hemimycena:
I usually find the extraordinarily rare Phellodon melaleucus in precisely the same place every year, and always make sure that anyone with me gets to see it. Most mycologists will never see this in a lifetime:
I spotted this frog whilst I was down looking at some mushrooms. It is so perfectly camouflaged that most people couldn't see it even when I pointed it out:
This exotic-looking mushroom is one of the Phlegmaceum subgroup of Cortinarius:
Other new species seen, but not photographed:
Amanita virosa (Destroying Angel)
Leccinum roseofractum
