Tag: Fungi Friday

November 2025: beware of pity

Daniel Greenwood1 Comment

I’ve had a burst of American visitors in recent days (to my blog, not my house). So thanks for visiting, y’all, and sorry about the year you’ve had.

You may have noticed I’ve slipped to monthly posts on here. Between April and October I posted blogs every Monday without pause, which is a tricky task when working full-time. The focus on a regular deadline can be helpful, but it can also take over, meaning I wasn’t taking the time to focus on the bigger blogs that are waiting in the wings. Many of these posts need photo editing time as well as the writing.

What I’m writing

This is more one from the archive.

It’s been a very productive year for honey fungus in southern England, and even The Guardian are getting in on the scaremongering (sort of). I had a look back at a blog I wrote about honey fungus in 2020 and thought there were some important points to consider. Honey fungus is a native species, trees die, and they have an afterlife.

I think honey fungus is the messenger telling us our woodlands are suffering, not the ultimate cause. In my opinion any blame lies in climate change brought about by extreme fossil fuel burning, and the lack of funding for our woodlands (jobs, not just volunteers please) and their management.

And while we’re on the subject of mushrooms, I’ve just posted my 100th FungiFriday.co.uk blog! Please do subscribe to that blog if you’re a WordPress user, or by email if you’re not.

I’ve been reviewing some of my archive of landscape photos and want to do some posts about the Cairngorms in Scotland. About 12 years ago, when I went on trips to the Scottish Highlands, I was focused on using only one image (as above) in blogs and having more prose-focused posts. This means there are some wonderful (IMO) images which are sitting in my storage unpublished. They’re all based around walks so I will probably approach with that angle.

What I’m recording

In September I heard from Oli Steadman, a musician from the band Stornoway, which was a nice surprise. We decided to record a podcast about Oli’s 30-mile walk around south London’s remnant ancient woodlands (the Great North Wood). The walk is to raise funds to support the Fourth Reserve Foundation, a community organisation managing a slice of railway-side woodland in Brockley, south-east London. You can see Oli’s fundraiser here.

What I’m reading

Ludwig Boedecker;’s photograph of Stefan Zweig’s Salzburg home in 1922, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I am in a long-Habsburg phase at the moment, having just finished Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig (1939), and now reading The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth (1932). Little did I know the authors were so well connected. I enjoyed the experience of reading Zweig but it certainly felt like something from a different era, shall I say. I don’t think the depiction of a disabled woman has stood the test of time.

Zweig’s novel ends with the First World War, which I just can’t seem to stop reading about at the moment!

José Gabriel Martínez-Fonseca

Elsewhere, I love this collection of bat portraits by José Gabriel Martínez-Fonseca published on Peta Pixel.

What I’m hearing

The legend that is Jens Lekman has released his first album since 2017: Songs for Other People’s Weddings. I have been listening to Jens since I bought a copy of Oh You’re So Silent Jens at HMV Manchester in November 2006. This new album is songs #literally written for other people’s weddings, but developed into a love story between two people. Jens is such a legend – his songs are beautiful, funny and affecting. It also features a diamond in the rough, singer Matilda Sargren.

What I’m watching

At home we’ve started watching House of Guinness on Netflix, a fictional account of the family behind that beverage. It’s been panned by critics and many Irish people find it patronising. What I found interesting was that the programme covers elements of the Great Famine of 1845, and in my ancestral land of Connacht (now Mayo). It blows my mind to think my relatives would have been living among those scenes depicted in the programme.

Elsewhere I noticed the inclusion of Fontaines DC and Kneecap in the soundtrack (not quite 19th century) and wonder is it an attempt to tap into the burgeoning Gen-Z interest in Irish rebellion and anti-establishment counter culture? You could do worse than read A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle, kids.

In more historically-accurate news, I watched a 30 minute long account of the Thirty Years War on Epic History (above). Oh my, glad I wasn’t alive then! It’s a helpful guide to how modern Germany was shaped from many disparate regions and states into one greater whole.

And finally thank you to everyone who has supported my work with a like, comment or contribution. I really appreciate it. You can support the running costs for this blog here.

Another reminder to visit Fungi Friday 🍄

Thanks for reading.

Podcast: summer fungi walk

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

Earlier this week I went for a short walk around part of the Sussex Weald to see if any mushrooms had popped up. We’ve experienced one of the driest springs on record and the warmest June for England, as well as three heatwaves already! Me and mushrooms don’t need three heatwaves, thanks.

You can listen to my recording and all other episodes of Unlocking Landscapes here, and across all the major platforms.

Mushrooms need rain, warmth and moisture to thrive, and after a downpour earlier in the day I thought it might be worth having a look. Here’s what happened:

You can see more of my fungi blogs on Fungi Friday

Podcast | Sussex Weald | Support my work

Dartmoor waxcaps

Daniel Greenwood6 Comments

This is a showcase of the posh mushroom pics I gathered with my proper camera during a visit to the wonderful Dartmoor National Park in November 2024. Mad props to my wife who is chief squirrel during these Devonian photo forages.

The photos were taken on Sunday 10th November 2024.

I write these blogs in my spare time because I want to raise awareness about the beauty and diversity of fungi. If you enjoy reading them you can support my blog here.

A reminder that I am not encouraging people to pick or remove mushrooms in these areas. You could very easily clear all the mushrooms we saw within minutes. I think that would be sad because it would mean other people wouldn’t get to see them and learn or be inspired by them. I think with rare species like waxcaps that are featured here, we should be taking photos and submitting them to apps like iNaturalist or Plantlife’s waxcap campaign. In some areas that would be illegal anyway, due to site protections.

While I don’t believe 2024 will go down as a vintage mushroom season, there were a lot of lovely waxcaps to be found on the moor in a place we’ve been visiting since 2016. Moorlands seem to be quite good for waxcaps, not that I know why, and also for lichens because they are rocky, wet and the air is fresh.

I’ll post the images in chronological order for my own sanity.

This is the landscape where the fungi lived – moorland with a view towards the Teign estuary.

The first fungal find were these eyelash cups (Scutellinia) growing on animal dung! Plenty more dungi to come.

Waxcaps make up the crux of the mushrooms we found. These beauties are butter waxcaps (Hygrocybe ceracea).

Not to be outdone, some very photogenic sulphur tuft (Hypholoma fasciculare) were found as we climbed the moor.

These mottlegills (Panaeolus) are quite common in places with grazing livestock like Dartmoor ponies.

My best guess is that this was one of the moss bells (Galerina).

These lichens are beautiful. I don’t see them very often because I have to travel west see moorland. They’re probably gritty British soldier lichens (Cladonia floerkeana).

I’m unsure what this species is, but it’s a beauty.

As we approached the more remote moorland (in terms of people living out there) the waxcaps began to appear in the cropped turf. This is another example of how important grazing to some degree is, and how it mimics very ancient processes. These mushrooms would not grow in closed-canopy woodlands.

This is one of the red waxcaps, but I’m unsure if it’s honey waxcap or not. It looks too orange for scarlet waxcap.

This is one of several species under the umbrella of blackening waxcap or witches’ bonnet (Hygrocybe conica complex).

This isn’t an award winning image but it’s likely to be meadow coral (Calvulinopsis corniculata).

This is a species I only really see in the west of England or Ireland. It’s one of the dog lichens (Peltigera).

These are crimson waxcaps (Hygrocybe punicea), stunning mushrooms indeed. There were some young men passing by who stopped to admire the colours of these impressive shrooms.

I don’t have an identification yet for this gorgeous waxcap and the closest I can guess is a colour variation of parrot waxcap (Gliophorus psittacinus).

This is meadow waxcap (Hygrocybe pratensis), often fan-like, always best photographed from ground level.

I think this is golden waxcap (Hygrocybe chlorophana).

Now we’re back at the dungi. This was a very small mushroom, growing on a rabbit or hare dropping.

These are probably dung roundhead (Protostropharia semigloblata). Despite the animal dung, they’re beautiful!

I’m not up on my corals and suchlike, but these are probably in this family.

The walk ended in a little graveyard, great places for waxcaps, by the way. That was evidenced again by this clutch of what I would say were scarlet waxcaps (Hygrocybe coccinea).

Phew!

Thanks for reading.

I write these blogs in my spare time because I want to raise awareness about the beauty and diversity of fungi. If you enjoy reading them you can support my blog here.

Autumn 2024: the Ghost Road

Daniel Greenwood5 Comments

Welcome to my seasonal ‘brain dump’ of stuff. Now that I basically only use WordPress for anything that remotely resembles social media, there’s more to say.

I feel like I’m falling behind with writing and photography, mainly because of my job being so full on and having to work weekends of late, sometimes 6 day weeks. It can’t last.

While writing a book is not high on my list of things to do, I have a book there to be written about my time working at Sydenham Hill Wood and all I learned about woods during that time. I don’t know if it will ever come to pass though, it’s very hard to make space for that kind of writing when I work full time and have life to do.

Fungi Friday keeps flowin’

I’ve been quiet on here but the mushrooms are flowing every Friday on my dedicated fungi blog. You can now subscribe to posts on there via email if you want to.

The autumn of 2024 was one of the worst mushroom seasons I have known, having been keeping an eye on such things since 2011.

Fly agaric in Hemsted Forest

Why has it been so bad? I don’t know. But a lot of my normal sightings haven’t happened this year in places where they usually appear. The rain in recent months (so much rain) made me think that this would be a good autumn. It’s below freezing now and the leaves are down, so the season has passed. Next year we go again, as the footballers say.

Then again, my website has had an exceptional mushroom season, with October having double the traffic of some previous years entirely. It has got to the point that the Forestry Commission contacted me asking for me to edit blogs and add in information about their byelaws. I was happy to do that, having worked in woodland management in the past, and specifically in partnership with them on occasion. It doesn’t half feel odd when you get an email like that, though.

New photo galleries added

I’ve been updating some of the pages on my website and added two new gallery sections. I’ve now got a page for my oak timber-framed buildings and church photographs.

Churches

I’m not an expert on either subject and am not promoting any religion or building style, but these images need a home and are probably of interest in research terms to someone.

Oak timbers

Check them out above. These pages will be updated as I find the time to organise the images properly.

Swiss Alps blogs

I’ve been working behind the scenes on more of my Swiss Alps blogs after visiting in May, with another two to come. I don’t know all the species I’m posting about so I need to identify them, which means it takes longer.

Swiss Alps: Grindelwald’s magnificent meadows 🦗

I think about those landscapes everyday and pine for a return.

Fishbourne Roman Palace

In October I visited Fishbourne Roman Palace in Chichester for the first time since childhood. Living in West Sussex and having worked across the county, you learn that Roman heritage is everywhere. It even forms the basis for some major roads like parts of the A29 or Stane Street.

This visit may have instigated an interest in Roman history, something I find to be very broad and difficult to find a way into. Mary Beard’s books and TV series have been a good step forward. Please let me know of any interesting Roman stuff in the comments.

My great-grandfather in his First World War military attire

Understanding the First World War

This year I’ve read six Pat Barker novels, all of which cover the stories of people living through and around the First World War (1914-18). I also realised that it has been 20 years since I sat my A-levels studying Barker’s novel Regeneration, among others. Last week I finished The Ghost Road, the finale of the Regeneration trilogy. It won the booker prize in 1995, and I can understand why. How lucky my generation was to grow up in a time of peace.

Remembrance Sunday has just passed here, but beyond the poppies it can be hard to see the real stories of the people whose lives were destroyed by the war. Poppies are everywhere, on everything, and I think this long article covers a lot of the issues arising from that.

My great-grandfather Wilfred served in that terrible war (pictured above) and I wonder how he, or my other paternal great-grandfather ever survived. My dad said that his grandfathers either didn’t say anything much at all, or they didn’t talk about the war. My aunt tells me that Wilfred was buried alive during some shelling and dug out by Canadian soldiers. I believe he was a runner in the trenches.

Lest we forget that several terrible wars rage today. If only they could end and their architects face justice for their crimes. History tells us that eventually that can, and often does, happen.

And finally, new music

One of my favourite artists of the last 20 years is Sufjan Stevens. I was introduced to him by my Scouse friends Kev and Graeme at university in Liverpool. Stevens has recently released Javelin, and it’s very good. A mix of his famous hushed acoustic tracks and his more eclectic electronic styles. He lost his partner and a lot of the grief has likely found its way into the record. You can listen to the full album above.

On Friday the legendary Joshua Tillman AKA Father John Misty released his latest album Mahashmashana. I’m waiting for the CD to arrive in the post! What I have heard, I love.

That’s it for now. Hoping you’ve had a good autumn, however many mushrooms managed to pop up near you.

Thanks for reading.

Autumn/winter 2023

Daniel Greenwood6 Comments

Hello! Here’s another of those seasonal blogs where I post stuff you don’t necessarily need to know.

The header image visible on the blog here is of November in the South Downs looking south towards Angmering.

Thanks to everyone who has viewed, commented on and liked my posts this year. Posting stuff on here is a joy for me and it’s really nice to have your questions and comments to deepen the narrative. These posts tend to get more comments than some of my most finely-sculpted photo or prose posts, so let’s see what you have this time.

Where have all the mushrooms gone?

Not a comment on a mycological crisis in the woods, but the content that seems to ‘drive traffic’ to this website. As some of you may have seen, I’ve set up a separate fungi blog/website for my mushrooms pics: www.fungifriday.co.uk

The Fungi Friday blog is a home for my fungi photos with a focus on southern England’s rich funga.

I created it for a couple of reasons. One the main motivations was enforced – social media like Twitter (RIP) and Instagram are moving away from photography and instead towards poorly functioning hate-posting for the latter, and TikTok-lite in the case of ‘The Gram’.

Then there’s Threads, which reminds me of the ‘smartshop’ self-scanning interface from Sainsbury’s. It’s also owned by Meta/Facebook, which is not great.

The second reason was that constant mushroom content doesn’t really fit with a personal website with varied, landscape-related subject matter. I value bringing hand-written landscape writing to this website, which the fungi content is not. If I’m ever going to make it as a writer, I’ll need to spend more time working offline with a pen and paper, and typing it up later.

Another key point is that fungi are ‘hyper-diverse’ and there is a lot to cover. I’m aware that quite a few people read this blog through their email inbox, and a mushroom a day probably isn’t what you need (though to some people, that’s exactly what they need). I’d like to post more longer reads about fungi in the cultural sense, as I did in lockdown (2020-21).

Anyway, I hope FungiFriday.co.uk can last the pace, and I’ll be posting my autumn photos over these bleak midwinter months. Please do #LichenSubscribe if you have a WordPress account.

Music in 2023

My favourite album of 2023 (though released in 2022) is Blue Rev by Alvvays. You can watch a live studio set from them above. Molly Rankin is part of the famous Rankin Family, and her voice positively sings of her ancestry. After the Earthquake is the song I couldn’t stop listening to in the spring/summer and the album has such depth to it for something so rockin’ and short. They are a total joy. Check them out!

I also loved the latest album by Alex G, God Save the Animals.

A snapshot of The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers

Favourite books this year

As mentioned in the spring, The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers has been one of the best books I’ve read in ages. It’s brutal, violent and bleak, which isn’t my thing, but it had that pull that keeps you wanting to know what’s going to happen next.

It’s also now been serialised (sort of) by the BBC. I haven’t watched it yet, mainly because I loved the book and I’m worried about how my ancestors will be represented (see previous image) on the small screen.

Colm Tóibín has been one of my other favourite authors I’ve read this year. My Irish diaspora family seem to spend a lot of their time consuming Irish culture in books, films, TV and music. I know I’m getting older because I am now doing that. This year I read Brooklyn, The Magician, House of Names and The Blackwater Lightship by Tóibín. Those books aren’t all about the Irish, but Brooklyn tells the story of a young woman’s migration to New York from a rural Irish village. England has descended into extreme far-right territory with its political language around migration, which you are probably sick of hearing about. But reading about the stories of migrants is probably a helpful way to educate one another and those close to us about the plight of others.

In other Irish lit, I also enjoyed reading all of Donal Ryan’s novels, especially The Queen of Dirt Island.

Another book I really enjoyed was close to home – Between the Chalk and the Sea by Gail Simmons. Simmons walks a path from Southampton to Canterbury she translates from the Gough Map, visiting large areas of the South and North Downs along the way. I love this part of the world and am so lucky to be a few train stops away from either landscape. This is definitely a great Christmas present and a book that walkers will love, especially if you like how the landscape can be read to tell the story of its past.

Also shout out to Owls of the Eastern Ice, which is an astonishing book that’s been around for a while now. I loved it.

My favourite film of 2023 is obviously Barbie.

Thanks for reading and your support in 2023. Ciao for now!

– Daniel

August mushrooms in the New Forest National Park 🐴

Daniel Greenwood3 Comments

New Forest National Park, Hampshire, August 2023

I was in the New Forest National Park camping for a couple of nights in August. The rainy July in southern England gave me great hope of finding some nice shrooms in what is one of England’s mushroom wonderlands. It didn’t disappoint!

Bolete bonanza

I was so happy to find these boletes, one having already been uprooted. They were the perfect shape and just an absolute joy to see. I have been told these are ceps, but I’m not entirely sure if they’re not another species. I’m unclear on the variety among cep-like boletes, and if the colouring isn’t indicative of another species.

These lovely yellow-pored boletes are in the genus Xerocomus.

About half a mile or less away we found this beauty sitting alone among the grass and leaf litter. It’s an orange bolete. It doesn’t appear to have a distinct association with one species of tree, but this area was common in oak and birch.

Much later that day, on the return stretch, we found this well-camouflaged group of what I am sure are ceps due to their colouring and other diagnostic features.

You can see the distinctive webbing on the stipe here, and the pennybun cap is all you need really:

As the evening drew in, I found this orange bolete that may have been picked by a deer (there was a herd in the area).

Webcaps

Earlier in the day, while passing between two plantations on a grassy ride, I noticed this uprooted mushroom on the ground. Two bites had been taken from it, probably by deer or a small mammal. The remnants of the veil between the cap and stipe, covering the gills, gave me the thought that this was a webcap. The gills were very beautiful, embellished by the water droplets.

iNaturalist has come back with an ID of webcap subsect ‘Purpurascentes‘. I can’t find any other info on the subgroup distinction.

Rustgills

Rustgills are a group I’m not particularly familiar with. Having developed my fungi knowledge in isolated city woodlands, I didn’t really see rustgills until I moved to Sussex and spent time in larger areas of woodland. This patch was unavoidable. No wonder there is a species known as the spectacular rustgill.

Rustgills are in the genus Gymnophilus. They’re confusable with scalycaps (Stropharia) due to shape and colour.

Chantarelles

And finally some golden chantarelles, already nibbled by slugs and uprooted, probably by deer (as I have said 1000 times in this post!).

The New Forest has a “no pick” policy and there are concerns about illegal, commercial-scale picking for posh restaurants, just FYI. All of these mushrooms had already been “naturally” uprooted (probably by deer).

Thanks for reading.

Fungi

Fungi walk at Bramshott Common – 21st Oct 2023

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

I’m pleased to be leading a fungi walk with the Heathlands Reunited team in the South Downs National Park this October:

Date/time: Saturday 21st October 2023, 11am

Location: Bramshott Common, Hampshire (near Haslemere)

Bramshott is in Hampshire, close to the border with Surrey and not far from West Sussex.

You can book a ticket (£3 admin charge) via Eventbrite.

I posted about Bramshott Common last year:

Basketful of Boletes

Earpick fungus in Hampshire

This walk will be a good way to learn about the common species of fungi in woodlands, their ecology and cultural significance. Though we won’t be picking mushrooms to eat, there will be some guidance around edibility generally as a safety guide. This is a great site for fungi with a lot of the ‘big-hitters’ and other unusual species to be found.

Thanks for reading.

Fungi

Fungi: Bedgebury Pinetum – one of the best places for fungi in England? 🌲

Daniel Greenwood3 Comments

Bedgebury Pinetum, Kent, September 2023

Disclaimer: this blog is now riding high in the search engines under the tag ‘Kent Fungi’ (not sure why, to be honest). On the back of this Forestry England contacted me to ask for me to point out to any readers that foraging is an offence, or more specifically:

‘Bedgebury Pinetum is protected by Forestry Commission bylaws that prohibit the damage or removal of any plant on site.’

While this is a photography and mycology post and not a foraging blog, it’s important that if you do go looking for fungi at Bedgebury that you don’t get caught out. Regardless of the fact that fungi are not plants, I think that byelaw must include fungi for some taxonomically archaic reason. I’ve written about this wider issue here. Thanks.

I visited Bedgebury Pinetum in Kent for the first time in early September 2023. It was impressive to see a noticeboard highlighting the Pinetum as one of ‘the best places for fungi in the country’!

Here’s the proof:

It has 12,000 specimen trees and a ‘world-leading collection of conifers’

Tell you what, though – they were not wrong about the dragonflies. The most impressive sight of the visit was dragonflies swarming on the margins of a field of, erm, monkey puzzles! Here’s the video:

It was dry and rather hot so I don’t think the Pinetum was at its best in the funga stakes, compared with the dragons.

As usual, I wasn’t there to forage, just to photograph. I don’t think Forestry England are fans of foraging on their sites. One of the first sightings of the visit was that common species in this part of the world – sulphur tuft.

I haven’t seen brick or conifer tuft yet, to my knowledge, so was wondering if this landscape where conifers were so dominant might change that. Looking at the gills and the caps, I don’t think I’m there yet.

Here’s the nice early stages of a bracket, which I haven’t identified yet. Might be a mazegill.

Tawny grisette is a lovely early Amanita. There were a couple at Bedgebury.

I have cobbled these together, even though they’re in different stages. I think they’re in the Clitocybe group, and are very likely funnels. The habitat and seasons are right, and the features look right (gills). It seems that there has been a taxonomic shake-up with this group, but it’s beyond this blogpost (and author!) to go into detail on that. Please comment if you have any suggestions.

It’s easy enough to plop these mushrooms into the ‘dungi’ category, and am confident that they’re mottlegills (Panaeolus). I’m half suspicous that the pale-capped shroom is a yellow fieldcap, rather than a saturated older fruiting body, just hanging out in the dung.

I haven’t done much work on trying to identify these yet, but they look like a group I am not familiar with. They were growing under an unusual type of turkey oak, but I don’t think there will be a mycelial connection there. Then again, what do I know.

So was it one of the best places to see fungi in England? I have no idea, but it will definitely be a good place to visit in the autumn months. Bear in mind the car parking fee is about £14, and I don’t know about public transport links in the area.

Thanks for reading.

This is a version of a previously-published post on my fungi blog.

Fungi

You may also be interested in:

#FungiFriday: 10 miles of mushrooms in the New Forest

New blog launched: FungiFriday.co.uk🍄

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

Hello!

I’m pleased to say that I’ve created a new home for my mushrooming fungi content – www.FungiFriday.co.uk

I’ll still be posting about fungi from time to time on here, but I felt it would be interesting to explore a fungi-only site, such is the breadth, depth and diversity to that area of nature. There is also massive interest in fungi nowadays.

I do have a lot of fungi posts that don’t make it onto here because they seem to species-focused and fungi is just such a massive area. Sometimes just dipping your toe in doesn’t feel like enough.

I don’t post photos on Twitter anymore because it has gone downhill so much. So I needed a new home for my stream of mushroom content!

It’s not a science website or one I would ever describe as being ‘expert’. Instead it’s a feed of fungi photos, events and info, with a bias towards southern England and the UK (with a bit of continental Europe). We’ll see how it goes over the first year. I’m inviting some fungi friends to contribute posts too which will be nice.

Here’s the link again: www.FungiFriday.co.uk

Thanks for reading.

Mushroom, mushroom burning bright 🍄

Daniel Greenwood3 Comments

…in the forest on a warm July afternoon.

It’s been a very busy summer so far for me of working and commuting. I had a free afternoon and so headed to my local dreamspace, but with no mushrooms on the mind – literally or figuratively.

Red admiral (phone pic)

The number of butterflies was remarkable, perhaps the sense of doom about 2023’s poor invertebrate spring had dampened my expectations too much. There were red admirals, skippers, whites of course, and even a white admiral on the sandy track. White admiral is something I don’t see that often, mainly because I lived in London for so long. Then again, it is cropping up in SE London now, which is interesting.

I was enjoying the sense of a butterfly summer, when I nearly spilled my invisible coffee at the sight of a deep red mushroom on the edge of the track.

Mushrooms, so abrupt, unapologetic. They know how welcome they are, even if you don’t realise it yourself at the time.

This was one of the summery, colourful boletes that can be found at this time of year. It’s probably a neoboletus, but my iNaturalist record is without community input and I haven’t had the time to do any research myself. So it remains an unknown jewel.

A few paces away was a more common and typical summer shroom, what I would guess is a blusher.

This short walk on the edge of the High Weald was notable for its green-ness, surely close to peaking as August nears.

We’re lucky over here that we aren’t experiencing the mega burns and record high temperatures of Greece, Italy and Arizona. You have to wonder how some of our fungi will cope with the drought and the impact on our woods. No doubt fungi will outlive humans in the long, long run (they can survive and thrive in nuclear reactors) but the heat can’t be good for the health of our woods which may struggle to adapt to pace and intensity of change.

When are we going to see serious action on climate, rather than flip-flopping by both major political parties? The kind of urgency we saw in crisis-managing COVID-19? Am I destined to see meaningful environmental policy remain as a marginal ideal in my lifetime?

No doubt fungi will rise into conservation thinking beyond the obsession with bringing back questionable, extinct species. But will that be too late as the heat rises and the woods burn?

Fungi, ever-resilient, have been found to benefit from burning in Australia, but of course that is just a handful of species.

It would be foolish no to follow one of the key messages fungi can teach us: don’t forget the present, you never know what might pop up.

Thanks for reading.

Fungi