Tag: Fungi foraging

A basketful of boletes 🧺

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

As seen on Friday 14th October 2022

In mid-October I met up with the Heathlands Reunited team at a Hampshire heathland in the Surrey borders. The meeting was to scope out a fungi walk I will be leading with them next month, and I thought it would be worth sharing some of the sightings. They will no doubt differ next month when autumn is well and truly progressing towards winter.

Very early on we found a perfect scarletina bolete (Neoboletus luridiformis)! This is one of my favourite species, having only seen one once before, on chalk on the South Downs Way in 2019.

Elsewhere in the bolete family, there were loads of brown birch boletes (Leccinum scabrum), most of which were in very good condition. Bramshott is a heathland so there’s a lot of birch there.

There were also plenty of Boletus edulis but they seemed to be mostly covered in mould after recent rain. This part of the Weald and Downs is quite misty and damp at times, so the mushrooms were probably quickly affected by the conditions.

There were lots of these red mushrooms that you may have heard of before. They’re enjoying a good year.

Other amanitas found that afternoon include what is either panther cap or grey-spotted amanita.

Less spotty amanitas included the highest numbers of tawny grisette mushrooms (Amanita fulva) I’ve ever encountered.

This grisette had fallen over. At the base you can see the ‘egg’ the fruiting body emerges from.

Along with those amanitas, the most common mushroom by a long, long way was the brown rollrim (Paxillus involutus). This is a poisonous mushroom which seems to be having a very good year.

Here’s a closer look at one of those grizzly bears. I first saw this mushroom when attending a walk from someone who taught me a lot – David Warwick – in Nunhead in SE London. He pulled what looked like a piece of rubbish from an old tree pit, what turned out to be the brown roll rim. I’ll never forget it!

As mentioned previously this season, the russulas are having a strong year. These lovely yellow ones, were appearing afresh from under the pines and birch. You can see a collapsed amanita in the background.

I have considered whether to try and spend more time learning to identify russulas. My focus is on learning families rather than getting obscure fungi down to species level. I am not completely a scientist in this and my aim is to produce photographs and write these blogs. It becomes all about how much time is available to you and what the best use of that time is.

As we finished scouting the route for the walk, we bumped into a group of women who were picking mushrooms. They had a woven basket full to the brim. From what I could make out they had picked a lot of honey fungus, ceps, a scarletina bolete and one of the leccinum boletes. We got talking to them and discovered they were Polish – I can speak a little bit, which I deployed here, always received very warmly! – and the woman in charge really knew her stuff. She said she was going to pickle them in olive oil and was happy with the slug-bitten state of that cep you can see on the lefthand-side.

I’ve written before about the place mushrooms have in historically ‘Slavic’ countries such as Poland. This is not something you would often see in England, nor to encounter someone with the level of confidence in their knowledge. Of course no nation of people can be generalised or defined in any one way but the English culture has become one of mycophobia.

If anything is to be said in riposte to that, it’s that the level of interest and intrigue in fungi in England is growing. We were here to plan a route for a public fungi walk, after all!

Thanks for reading.

Further reading: Fungi

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Fungi 🍄: poisonous mushrooms

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

In England we suffer with a condition that affects many people: mycophobia, a fear of fungi.

If you ask anyone about wild mushrooms, you’re likely to receive a response highlighting the fear of being poisoned. Cultivated mushrooms are a staple of the ‘British diet’ but people have very little knowledge about ones you can eat from the wild, perhaps because it doesn’t seem worth the risk.

Another thing most of us lack is an understanding of where we can forage if we are allowed to. It’s no surprise, the situation is complicated and in general foraging wild mushrooms is frowned upon, regardless of arguments for or against.

Zwerge und Pilzsammlerin im Wald by Heinrich Schlitt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Debunking myths

It’s important to debunk some myths around the edibility of fungi:

  • Just because another animal eats a certain fungus, it does not mean it’s ok for a human to eat. Deathcaps can be consumed by other animals, whereas the result for us would be extreme
  • You can’t get sick from looking at, sniffing, listening to or even tasting a mushroom (on your tongue), but only from ingesting a part of a toxic mushroom. All in all, if you’re not an expert it’s just not worth a taste-test of a mushroom that could cause you serious illness
  • Some species which are edible still cause sickness in people, and not in a way that is predictable for some people
Fly agaric

Meet the Amanita Family

The most toxic mushrooms in the UK are found in the Amanita family, home to famous species such as the red and white fly agaric. They have some extremely sinister names: deathcap and destroying angel, for example. The deathcap is common in the UK, especially under beech trees. There are other similar species like the false deathcap, however, but the similarity is not so close.

The destroying angel gets its name from the fact it’s pure white but deadly poisonous. This is where a lot of problems lie. People confuse the destroying angel for white edible species like horse or field mushrooms.

One of the more common cases of confusion appears to be people from countries in Asia who are new to places like Europe or North America, foraging mushrooms that look identical to destroying angel but accidentally ingesting the toxic variety. Tragically, this has happened in recent months after Afghan refugees ate deathcap mushrooms in Poland after being evacuated from Afghanistan. There is no reason why they would have thought the mushrooms would not be the same as the ones they ate at home. Knowledge is privilege.

Other toxic Amanitas are the panthercap and, to a lesser degree, fly agaric. Confusingly there are some in the family which are edibles, including the blusher and Caeser’s mushroom (the latter named for its favour among Roman leaders). Remember: no one without relevant expertise should ever consider trying to eat an Amanita mushroom.

Magpie inkcap

Mycophobia

The fear whipped up around these species is, unsurprisingly, exploited in the British tabloid press, with the following being printed in one major English newspaper:

“Foragers are being warned about an alarming abundance of Britain’s most poisonous variety of mushroom this autumn.”

There’s mycophobia rearing its head once again, you could argue. Anyone who knows what the deathcap’s features are is unlikely to ever mistake it for something edible. It’s about taking care and time and having the right knowledge.

That said, the impacts of the deathcap on the human body are very unpleasant. Though someone can eat the mushroom and not feel any effects for 12 hours or more, it will slowly be degrading the liver on the quiet and other vital organs, resulting in eventual death if not treated.

This podcast covers quite a lot around the attitudes people have to fungi in the UK.

Sulphur tuft

Other poisonous mushrooms to know

One toxic mushroom that is very common is sulphur tuft. Sulphur tuft grows in woods, parks, gardens and even the street. It’s known to cause mild to severe illness in people.

There are other deadly species which are very common, including such as funeral bell(!) and brown roll-rim. Brown roll-rim can even be found in urban areas, with the first ones I ever saw were in urban south-east London in an old tree-pit next to a main road.

Funeral bell

It’s also important to know that species which are edible to some like chicken of the woods may cause mild sickness in other people.

Honey fungus

The same goes for honey fungus, which is edible but can make people sick, especially after eating a certain amount of it.

This shouldn’t be seen as a guide to avoiding poisonous mushrooms so please don’t treat it that way, nor is it support for a mycophobic view of the outdoors. Always do your research and understand that you need to develop your knowledge over time. My interest here is the role fungi play in our lives, especially the debilitating fear factor – the mycophobia.

Thanks for reading.

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Fungi 🍄: foraging winter chanterelles

Daniel Greenwood3 Comments

I’m in the middle of reading an excellent book called The Way Through the Woods by Long Litt Woon. It’s about rebuilding her life after the sudden death of her husband, in part by becoming an official mushroom identifier in her native Norway.

This wonderful book has also taught me about my own case of mycophilia (a love of fungi):

The mycophile endeavours to minimise the risk by adopting an extremely cautious approach to mushroom picking – ‘defensive mushrooming’ – and by continually increasing their knowledge.

p.99: The Way Through the Woods – Long Litt Woon

I love this definition. I am extremely cautious about eating mushrooms (actually quite cautious about most things I eat) and look to add knowledge slowly and surely. ‘Defensive mushrooming’ is a role I am happy to undertake.

Now, I’m not much of a forager, for all manner of boring reasons that probably need a blog of their own. But over the years, after finally recovering from a devastating encounter with a tub of M&S cream of mushroom soup, I have learned to enjoy eating mushrooms.

The majority of fungi that I consume are in the form of mycoproteins in products like Quorn and other ‘plant-based’ (LOL) sausages and meat replacement things. If you thought science was slow to identify that fungi are not plants – officially in 1969 – then wait until you see what supermarkets are up to. I’m also partial to shiitake mushrooms which I use in broth or soups with pearl barley, garlic and ginger.

Finding chantarelles

Back in November I headed out to a place where an edible mushroom, the winter chanterelle (Craterellus tubaeformis), fruits in big numbers. I wanted to gather a small amount to try in a pasta dish. Previously my partner bought me some dehydrated horn-of-plenty from Spain, my only experience of eating from this family of delicious fungi. I didn’t use them in the right way and so probably wasted them, to be honest. I needed to put that right.

I had seen and identified winter chanterelles in the past, in the same wider woodland area. They’re easy to ID because of their yellow stipe, the time that they appear, and their ‘false gills’. One of the chanterelles had kindly confirmed its spore print, as can be seen above on the caps of a couple of nearby shrooms.

Here are those beautifully networked ‘gills’ and the strong yellow stipe (commonly known as a stem, of course) which help to identify the mushroom.

We gathered a small number of mature mushrooms and took them home in a plastic box.

Cooking chantarelles

At home I washed the mushrooms (the white spikes are from some hedgehog mushrooms) in a colander. There were some nematodes and other bits of soil so you do need to be careful to clean them. The nematodes were placed outside in my garden somewhere suitable for them. You are probably completely put off eating wild mushrooms after that sentence…

Then I laid the mushrooms all out – hedgehog mushrooms on the right hand side – and you can see they’ve been cleaned up.

I then fried some onions in butter and garlic. Or maybe it was olive oil, I can’t remember!

I chopped the chantarelles in half down their centre and added them to the softened onions and garlic in the pan.

The pasta of choice here was gnocchi (is it officially pasta?) which is part potato, part wheat. It’s really easy to cook. I think I boiled it first but you don’t always need to do so. We consumed it like this. I can confirm it was really delicious and that the chanterelles had a lot of flavour.

Things to remember

I would suggest to anyone reading this who wants to go and find wild mushrooms to eat, to consider the following:

  • Are you able to correctly identify the mushroom you want to consume?
  • Is the mushroom definitely edible?
  • Do you have permission to pick mushrooms in the relevant location?
  • Is the location uncontaminated and therefore safe to consume things that have grown there?

Thanks for reading.

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#FungiFriday: red banded polypore in Romania

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

Fungi Friday 5th March 2021

These days of lockdown have made me appreciate the places I’ve had the privilege of visiting in the before Covid times. Also, I haven’t been to the woods properly in what feels like ages and I’ve not found any fungi locally, until it was too late for this post. And this one is late!

In spring 2015 I went to Romania by train, something that seems like a lifetime ago now. My friend Eddie and I spent several days hiking in the High Carpathians spruce woodlands.

One of the areas we walked in was the Bucegi Mountains.

This was a quite touristy area due to the presence of a waterfall, but there were very nice woodlands flanking the main walk. Flowers like winter aconite were common.

There were some huge spruce trees, covered in these beautiful bracket mushrooms:

They are a species I have seen mainly in Poland, Czechia and here in Romania. They’re red banded polypore.

I didn’t have the right lens on to capture the scene, but the mushrooms were covered in what I think were fungus gnats. The gnats were mating en masse! Some insects are actually dependent on fungi for habitat. I’ve seen them roosting within mushrooms gills before. Quite amazing.

I found a red banded polypore which had fallen from a tree. I don’t know if it managed to look like a smiley face. In Covid times it looks more like a mask. I think I’ll stick to the ones my mum made me!

Thanks for reading.

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#FungiFriday: the biggest spread of mushrooms I’ve ever seen

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

Fungi Friday 16th October 2020

I visited the Surrey Hills in the North Downs last week. Autumn was pushing through lots of tree species, but the oak and birch still held green. I was expecting to find more mushrooms, judging by the glut of shrooms splurged across social media in the past week.

This is the moody view from Box Hill, one of southern England’s best known beauty spots. Box Hill is part of the North Downs, a ridge of chalk that runs between Farnham in Surrey to the white (green) cliffs of Dover. The North Downs, like its southern sister, is covered by chalk grassland and woodland habitats, overlooking the clay soils of the Weald which are interlaced with sandy heathland.

I was expecting to see more mushrooms because of the recent rain and the time of year (autumn, FYI). There were a few fly agarics (check out this great thread on Twitter) but not much else. Perhaps London’s famous gangs of illegal foragers had got the train down and taken EVERYTHING.

I don’t think the foraging fyrd had been by, because these parasols were getting ready in the grasslands. Also I don’t know if they even exist to be honest. How it started (above).

How it’s going.

The amanita family were present in the form of what is probably a false-deathcap. The biggest hoard was to be found in an area of woodland, as you might have guessed.

In June I wrote a post about honey fungus and how disliked it is. It’s not really bothered though because it’s grown to be the biggest living organism on/in Earth (I think). This batch of honey fungus is the biggest spread of fungi I, have, ever, seen. The mushrooms are popping up from a widely spread mycelium in the soil.

Looking at the individual mushrooms I think this is ringless honey fungus because it lacks a collar or ring on the stipe.

Then again, looking at another spread growing around an old stump, there do appear to be turtlenecks going on.

My friend Jess was keen to show some love for the honey fungi. The decaying trunk the mushrooms are sprouting from should be a reminder of how important ‘dead’ or decaying wood is in the world.

I am currently reading The Overstory by Richard Powers. I was given it as a birthday present (and funnily enough also passed a copy by Jess) mainly because it’s a novel about trees. It’s a complex, multi-protagonist story that comes together around the clearance of ancient old-growth woodlands in North America. One of the characters is a woodland ecologist who gives evidence in court as to why old-growth woodland should be protected from logging. It’s a brilliant scene, and it has a quote in it which really hit home with me:

“I sometimes wonder whether a tree’s real task on Earth isn’t to bulk itself up in preparation to lying dead on the forest floor for a long time.”

The amount of life found in the decaying tissue of a fallen tree that no longer grows outnumbers that found in living trees. Yet deadwood has been cleared from European temperate woodlands to such an extent (hi Forestry, I know, you’re changing) that many species dependent on this habitat are at risk of extinction.

Honey fungus is just one species that creates deadwood habitat for insects, spiders and other species which depend on it. These deadwood invertebrates are the most threatened species group in Europe. If you can do anything in the space you have, be it a private or a public space, please add some dead wood. It will make more difference than perhaps you realise.

Thanks for reading.

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#FungiFriday: hedgehog mushrooms

Daniel Greenwood4 Comments

Fungi Friday 9th October 2020

A couple of weeks ago I visited the New Forest and saw hedgehog mushrooms for the first time. There are several species of hedgehog mushroom in the UK, all being edible. Since then I’ve been doing my research to try and learn more about them. This video has been helpful:

In short, hedgehog mushrooms are difficult to confuse with anything else because they have spikes where gills or pores are usually found, under the mushroom’s cap. If you want to eat any wild mushroom you should be sure you have used several different forms of identification and are completely sure of what it is.

I was out for a short photography expedition (walk) at the weekend and I discovered some more hedgehog mushrooms. Their numbers were so healthy and the shrooms themselves were in such good condition, I couldn’t help pick a few for myself.

I used my penknife to cut the mushrooms at ground level. I then used the knife (as in the video) to remove the spikes.

This may help with spore dispersal and allow more hedgehog mushrooms to spread.

This is what they look like in the wild. The caps of these mushrooms were a bit mouldy.

I got the mushrooms home as quickly as possible. I didn’t have an air-proof container to put them in so time was of the essence. I cleared the rest of the spikes from them and washed them, scraping off any excess soil.

I had no idea of a recipe for the mushrooms, I hadn’t even planned to eat them. I fried them in some butter and garlic until they were lightly browned.

In short, they were delicious. I think they would work well with something like chorizo.

Back to the woods where the mushrooms I had no intention of eating were doing really rather well.

The edge of the town I live in has a lot of conifer plantation, once heathland, a sandy, acidic habitat. There is plenty of silver birch which means fly agaric.

This was the best specimen I could find, a veritable pondshroom.

The leaf litter is becoming so damp from recent heavy rain that smaller species are coming up. Woodland soils are incredibly rich in life and our footfall can be very damaging if not managed in sensitive places. This small mushroom (mycena, I think) is one that can be easily found at this time of year. The time before leaves fall is an easier time to find fungi. This is also because after the leaves fall the cold weather comes and mushrooms are held back.

My favourite find of the week, despite the delicious hedgehogs, was this pink fungus growing at the base of a pine tree stump. It took me a while to work out what this species is. Bizarrely, it took the accidental viewing of a YouTube video to learn that it’s called plums and custard! It is a stunning shroom.

Thanks for reading.

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#FungiFriday: 10 miles of mushrooms in the New Forest

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Fungi Friday 2nd October 2020

I found so much for this week’s post that it’s a mushroom-packed blog!

The wait is over, the mushrooms are arriving. I had the pleasure of a 10-mile walk in the New Forest in September. It was a warm and sunny day. It was a special walk because it revealed two species I have never seen before. One renowned for its edibility, the other for its deadliness.

The New Forest is a National Park and Special Area of Conservation. It’s of European importance with places left like it in the continent. Its mosaic of woodland and heath is maintained by free-roaming animals owned by commoners. This in ancient land management practice which, around Europe, is often responsible for the conservation of rare habitats and species. The New Forest was established by William the Conqueror at some point after 1086 when the Domesday Book was created. Its old name ‘Nova Foresta’ translates directly to its current name. It certainly ain’t new anymore.

It’s also more heathland than woodland, an open habitat. ‘Forest’ does not actually mean woodland. It means ‘outside of common law’ or a place where Forest Law was enacted. Forest Law was implemented by the Normans to ensure recreational hunting for the aristocracy was protected from the foraging and ‘poaching’ of local people. Its enactments were often violent. The Vederer’s court still exists in Lyndhurst, where hearings took place regarding acts committed within the Forest.

The New Forest is home to lots of spectacular ancient and veteran trees like the hollowed out beech tree above. It has a feel to it that is unlike other places. It is spectacularly rich in fungi, or at least, compared to other areas of the UK.

Much of the land is owned by Forestry England and they discourage foraging.

The first fungus I found was in a car park, on a bank under pine trees. It’s cauliflower fungus, looking a little bit dry in the sudden burst of warm weather. This is an edible species.

In the buttress of an old oak was this beefsteak fungus, a bracket that looks like human organs. It’s an edible species that has also led people to call the police, thinking that a crime had occurred in the woods!

The most common species of the 10 miles was sulphur tuft. It responds quickly to rain and was popping up in lots of places. This is one of the most common species in the UK and is also toxic.

There was a good showing from the russula family (AKA brittlegills). This one had already been picked.

The crowded gills of russulas are a sight to behold. They are, of course, brittle and so break easily. The gills and stipe are always white or cream.

Unless it’s blackening brittlegill!

Deeper into the woods, this greenish species of milkcap was abundant in certain areas alongside the track. They were under either spruce or pine, shown by the needles here. I’m not sure of the species but they may be either Lactarius deterrimus or Lactarius quieticolor.

I think this is the same species, overcome with a blue-green colouring.

This is a wood or field blewit, which are usually found in grassy areas.

This is my first deceiver of the season, so named because it can be confused for others. I have rarely found that to be the case, though! This is a mega-common species and is also edible. It’s said only to be worthwhile in large numbers.

This doesn’t look great but apparently it tastes it! I knew when I saw these apricot coloured fungi that they were hedgehogs. This is a first for me. I looked for the spikes underneath the caps. They are described by professional foragers as one of the safest species to eat. That’s because they’re impossible to confuse with others due to the spikes and that all the hedgehogs are edible.

This is how they look from afar, note the beech leaves for scale. They don’t look like much.

Conifer mazegill is one of my favourite species of polypore or bracket. I love the velvet-like yellow edge to the bracket. It is a beautiful fungus. I think it’s one I’ve only ever really seen in New Forest plantations or heaths.

Fungi is an acquired taste. This is probably egghead mottlegill, on horse or cattle dung! Stay classy. It was alongside a road at the edge of beech woodland.

I wrote about the amanita family a couple of weeks ago. They were out in force in the New Forest. This is the first fly agaric I’ve seen this year. September is a great month for this iconic species. It has such a depth of cultural significance it deserves its own post.

The blusher is a common amanita which is so named for its pinkish colouring. I’ve read that it’s edible, which is weird considering the consistently poisonous nature of the family.

These are probably panther caps, a leathery-looking shroom. I’m not 100% sure because they seem too big.

False deathcaps were common in Mark Ash Wood, the target for the walk itself. It’s a beautiful ancient woodland with an old stream and wet alder carr running throught its heart. It was in the damp area, on a mossy tree root, that I found a special mushroom:

I had to put this out to Twitter to be sure. I think this is a deathcap, one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the Northern Hemisphere. Another first for me! That is a mushroom that definitely needs a post of its own.

Thanks for reading.

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#FungiFriday: my first stinkhorn in Bradfield Woods

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

Fungi Friday 11th September 2020

Autumn has arrived.

Last week I promised more of Suffolk’s mushrooms having spent a week there. That was before a visit to Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s Bradfield Woods, where the mushrooms were kicking off big time. It provided me with a life-tick, not an arachnid that will be attached to me for the rest of my days, but a first time wildlife encounter. I saw, and smelled, a stinkhorn.

Bradfield Woods is a National Nature Reserve. That’s a big deal. I have wanted to visit this place since reading Oliver Rackham’s books about woodlands, with Bradfield Woods being one of his most often mentioned, due to its ancient character. It’s a coppice-with-standards oak-hazel woodland. The oldest woods we have in England are woodlands managed in this way, with hazel trees cut to their base periodically and oak trees felled to be used for construction. The coppice stools can live for a very long time, as the coppicing does not kill the specific species of trees, namely hazel and ash in this case. The oldest woods are also the best for fungi because they have the most stable soil systems, despite the regular cutting of trees.

Bradfield Woods is a series of woodlands. English woods are small and often form a network of interlinked parcels, forests are large expanses of heathland, moorland and sometimes woodland. Bradfield Woods was saved in the 1960s (what is seen by Rackham as one of the most destructive periods for British woodland) from being destroyed for agriculture. But more woodland was lost at its edges, as the maps show, with this isolated chunk of woodland in a sea of farmland. This oak tree, not ancient, stood in a neighbouring field. The oak leaves at the top of the frame are in Bradfield Woods, perhaps willing it to return.

It was quite clear that we had visited at a great time because there were early signs that the conditions were right for fungi. The red-cracking bolete above was past its best, laying at the side of the main path. It’s a relative of the boletes, a Xerocomus species that is very often seen in oak woodland in August-September. It often has a reddish colour with yellow pores. In fact, the boletes and their relatives were out in force, released from a summer of lockdown:

This could be a suede bolete.

This could be another Xerocomus species.

There were lots of boletes along the path edges. It was reminiscent of summer 2016 when even in urban south London this type of mushroom was out in force.

Boletes are renowned for their edibility but it was still funny to see the squirrel claw marks in the top of this mushroom. I think this is probably the cep, Boletus edulis. The one everyone wants to eat.

I think these are another bolete relative, in the Leccinum branch, where birch boletes reside.

These gorgeous boletes were lying at the path edge 💅

There was an abundance of fungi, something I’m not seeing down south in dry old Sussex. Note the smaller mushrooms surrounding these fallen shrooms, signs of a previous burst after decent rainfall.

A summer mushroom that pops up quickly after rainfall is the fairy inkcap. This explosion was at the foot of a dead, standing tree. Leaving dead trees standing is crucial to a healthy woodland.

They will last perhaps a day or two at best before deliquescing into the earth.

Dryad’s saddle is a reasonably common summer fungus, and an edible one at that. But I have never managed to see them in this bizarre early stage where the top looks so much like a mocha or cappucino.

Here you can see old and new dryad’s saddles. Dryad is an interesting word. It means wood nymph, but also means oak nymph. ‘Druid’ means ‘knower of the oak’, which relates to the ‘dry’ at the beginning of the word. The tree is an ash, not an oak!

The most impressive species was to come later. Once again, along the edges of a main pathway, I noticed an unusual fungus. As the cliche goes, it stopped me in my tracks.

‘This is a moment,’ I said.

The mushroom was a stinkhorn, a species which appears from a sort of egg-like growth. It has a suitably unsuitable Latin name of Phallus impudicus. Probably going to leave that one there.

This fungus is renowned for its stench. ‘Rotting flesh’ is how it is most commonly described. It attracts flies and, in this instance, beetles. They were all over it, but took cover at the base of the shroom when I approached. It really did stink, the smell seemed to me to be similar to roadkill foxes I have had to dispose of when working as a woodland warden. The smell lingered and, gladly, it reminded me on leaving this spectacular woodland of a a very special and unexpected experience.

Thanks for smelling reading.

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#FungiFriday: a quick guide to five edible mushrooms

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

Epping Forest - 13-817 djg-41

Fungi Friday 21st August 2020

This week I thought I would write a post answering the most common question regarding fungi – which ones can you eat?

Disclaimer: I am not encouraging you to forage without following a code of respect for nature, wildlife, habitats and the environment. Your desire to eat wild food is not more important than the thing you are trying to forage or the habitats those species depend on to exist. Learn your foraging rights and exercise them with restraint. Respect habitats and know what you are picking.

Here are five well-known species:

Dartmoor 2018 djg (6)

Cep (Boletus edulis)

There are few other places to start with edible mushrooms. This mushrooms is known in Italy as porcini, America as king bolete, France as cep and England as pennybun. When finding ceps you’ll need to ensure they haven’t been eaten through by larvae from the ground up. This is done by cutting the mushroom where it’s attached to the soil and looking at the condition of the stipe. Ceps can be eaten raw in salads and are also good in risotto. I’ve only ever eaten them in restaurants. They grow in woodlands, plantations and on heathlands.

BenVrackie_Sept2018-10

Chantarelle (Cantharellus cibarius)

Chantarelles are a species I’ve only ever seen twice in the wild and I’ve never eaten one. I’ve eaten horn of plenty but they were a gift from Spain. This is the time of year to be looking for chantarelles (August-September). They are a yellowy-orange colour and look a bit like splattered egg yolk from above. People who reliably find chantarelles often have a patch that they return to each year. Not to be confused with false chantarelle. Later in the autumn trumpet chantarelles are another edible relative (that is a phrase you don’t hear often). I’ve found them growing on heathland.

Fungi - July 2018 djg-6

Chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sulphureus)

I saw a couple of specimens of chicken of the woods this week, but the best time to find them is May-June. This is an easy to identify fungus which grows mostly on oak, but also on sweet chestnut and even yew. Often it grows on fallen tree trunks. Never, ever, eat this if it grows on yew. Yews are poisonous and the fungus will absorb the toxins. It’s important to know that some fungi absorb pollution, so be careful where you are picking things. They are best eaten when younger. This species is important for invertebrates so don’t hoover everything up. That should be the consideration at all times.

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Amethyst deceiver (Laccaria amethystina)

This is a very small, common mushroom in woodland. Sometimes they are so small you completely miss them down in leaf litter. In 2019 on a single visit to a favourite woodland I found thousands of them growing. They are a beautifully photogenic species and when in good light they have a lovely amethyst glow. They can be found from August to November. They have to be picked in larger numbers to be worth cooking.

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Common puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum)

Giant puffballs are famous for the their unusual size and the fact you can, well, eat them. A smaller cousin of the giant puffball is the common puffball. This species grows on the woodland floor and can be found throughout the autumn. I often find them at the edges of footpaths, which are not great places to find anything you ever want to eat. I think common puffballs look like submarine bread rolls with their speckled caps.

Thanks for reading. Don’t do anything stupid.

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#FungiFriday: 5 reasons why fungi are good for us

Daniel Greenwood5 Comments

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Fungi Friday 22nd May 2020

This week has been Mental Health Awareness Week. We all have mental health but in general many people lack an awareness of it.

In the UK this is not helped by hundreds of years of toxic interpretations of masculinity and the systematic oppression of women in society. There’s a grave stigma attached to even discussing mental health, due to centuries of extreme societal, political and, indeed, medical responses to psychological ailments.

In recent years, despite severe cuts to mental health services in the UK, the conversation has begun to change.

Nature, or at least our sense of it, has become a counsellor, allowing us to detach ourselves from societal roles and see ourselves as a single species in a vast web of biodiversity. Nature helps us to feel human. Fungi are a big part of that.

While this post is definitely not about hallucinogenic mushrooms or any such trips, dude, I thought I’d take the chance to share how fungi offers ideas that help me to cope with the stresses and anxieties of ‘normal’ life.

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1. Fungi and the diversity of life

Knowledge is one of the most important ways to overcome mental illness. For many people a diagnosis is crucial to overcoming a condition. In trying to cope with life generally I have found that small, incremental improvements to my own knowledge, especially around the natural world, can help to build a foundation of resilience through understanding. In a time when we are faced with the potential for a Sixth Mass Extinction, it’s important to appreciate that there is an immense diversity of biological life on Earth worth fighting for.

A big part of that diversity is fungi, it has a Kingdom of its Own. British conservationists are renowned for pummelling themselves with the lack of biodiversity we have. Yes we have lost wolves, bears and lynx, but we have an immense diversity of fungal life in comparison to other groups such as mammals.

In the UK there are thousands of species of fungi, in the world there are known to be around 100,000. Scientists believe there are in fact over 1million species of fungi with a huge percentage of them yet to be identified.

RS2354_Daniel Greenwood Sydenham Hill Wood mushroom 26-11-2017

2. Looking for fungi is good for you

Above is a photo of a fungi walk I led in 2017 for London Wildlife Trust. These walks had to be capped each time and extra dates put on (rock’n’roll) because the interest was so high. We are attracted to fungi by its mysteriousness, its beauty, the fact it feeds us, underpins the biosphere, and also that they kill us on rare occasions.

While opinions around foraging fungi are fairly divided, the act of looking for fungi can have a huge impact on your wellbeing. One of the most rewarding elements about spending time ‘in nature’ is that you are distracted by the largely artificial worries that we face in modern life. By that I mean the deadline you have to meet at work, the email you didn’t reply to or the fact you haven’t hoovered your bedroom for a month.

An appreciation of fungi can also help to deal with seismic moments in life. A recent book has shown how learning about fungi and seeking them out can help to overcome bereavement.

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Take the example above. This is a patch of sulphur tuft, one of the most common speciess in the UK. I used to pass this garden on the way to work every day. It was very manicured but these mushrooms had burst on the scene. If I were to anthropomorphise, I would say it was a big ol’ middle finger to people trying to control every inch of their gardens. Sorry if that’s you!

The act of looking is an act of defiance, of rejecting the status quo and seeking out something new. For me, what nature brings in fungi is a newness that will never end. There are too many species, too much to learn, even in Little Britain.

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3. Fungi feeds humanity

While you won’t find recipes on this website for anything other than life-affirming hiking experiences, we should remember that fungi make up an important part of our food systems. While wild mushrooms don’t really make much of a dent in that, the discovery of a delicious wild mushroom is a thought that can keep you going when the woods are far away.

I have only ever eaten one wild mushroom. It was picked by a friend in Czechia in a very large area of woodland. She gasped when she saw it, took out her pen knife and cut the cap off. ‘Are you sure that’s edible?’ I asked. She was crouched down, stopped what she was doing and glared at me: ‘I have been picking this mushroom my entire life.’

Nuff said.

When we got back to her house she battered it in breadcrumbs and fried it. It was incredible.

Fungi does also provide important meat-alternatives to help us to focus on consuming meat from sustainable, local sources. Mycoproteins make wonderful sausages and burgers. Fungi is also needed for cheese, beer, bread and wine. Now many of you would struggle to live without those things!

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4. Fungi = time in the woods

Every autumn I make sure to have at least one full day in the woods. I bring lunch, snacks, water and all the camera equipment I can carry. It’s a chance to slow down and tune into the rhythm of the woods. It’s better than I’ve made it sound.

Spending time in woodland is shown to improve our health. The air is fresh, the sounds, colours and textures give us a great feeling of calm. There are also chemicals which trees and plants release which support our immune systems.

Spending time in woodland also teaches us respect. As a woodland warden in south London I witnessed many people making their first visit to the woods and nigh-on trashing the place. They sometimes did that themselves, sometimes with their pets, sometimes with their friends. I remember one volunteer who had become an impassioned defender of wildlife at the wood, even though he probably did things several decades ago as a teenager, that he wasn’t proud of. Even when people are causing harm in nature, not through the devastation wrought by things like HS2, at least they are there and they can develop an appreciation of it. We all must learn these things one way or another.

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5. Fungi will save the world – perhaps us, too

Plastic is a blight on our planet. Fungi could help us to manage it and rid its waste from the landscape. Fungi is being developed as a disposable material to replace non-degradable or recyclable plastics. Fungi also has a role in the mass production of a bacteria that scientists recently discovered at a landfill, quietly digesting non-degradable plastics.

While fungi has an important role to play in these issues, it’s good to remember that in many ways, fungi are the world. Fungi have played crucial support roles in the evolution of woodland ecosystems, trees, plants and many more species. We should celebrate and attempt to understand as much as we can about this amazing biological group.

Thanks for reading, wishing you well.

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