Bramshott fungi walk – October 2023

Bramshott, Hampshire, October 2023

On Saturday 21st October I led a fungi walk in the Bramshott area for the South Downs National Park’s Heathlands Reunited project. Thanks to Olivia and Dan for setting the walk and guiding us on the day.

It was a chilly and showery day with breaks of sunshine to light up the birch and bracken.

Autumn had crashed in with its typical rain and leaf fall. I think the early mushroom season has been shortened by the hot September and sudden shift to seasonal storms. Just a thought.

Sulphur tuft was one of the first mushrooms encountered, among a whole load of small grey/brown mushrooms that I wasn’t able to ID on the spot.

This looks to me like one of the grey spotted amanitas but after a bit of a downpour.

This is very probably a blusher, amanita rubescens. You can see a slight pink hue at this premature stage.

Fly agarics were slow to show but when the walk passed through grassy open woodland, they abounded. This one was almost like a russula with its typical white veil remnants

Amanita citrina, the false deathcap, was one of the most common mushrooms on the walk. It was abundant in the areas of beech woodland and also the open, grassy birch and oak woodland.

I’m not sure which waxcap this is, but heath waxcap, Gliophorus laetus, would make sense because it’s a waxcap on a heath!

This was one of the few red russulas, though there were tens of different-coloured varieties along the way. Sometimes the only mushroom around was a russula.

This was a very large mushroom under an oak tree. I’ve not seen this species before but am leaning towards an ID of giant funnel, Aspropaxillus giganteus.

My guess here is that this is bleeding oak crust, Stereum gausapatum.

The only cep, Boletus edulis, in the whole area. I think most of these have been picked for the pot already by other visitors.

This nicely shows the change that occurs in blackening waxcap, Hygrocybe conica. It looks like a jelly sweet to begin with then becoming rather liquorice.

One picture that sums up the status of this wooded heath – an empty blank bullet casing underneath sulphur tuft.

Thanks for reading.