Tag: 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

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#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

Is this England’s national mushroom? 🍄

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

No nationalism was expounded in the making of this blogpost.

On a recent visit to the National Trust’s Nymans Gardens I spotted some big, cream-coloured things in the lawns near the car park. No, these were not scones or cream cakes, or even pasties discarded by visitors. It clicked almost immediately for me that these might be St. George’s mushroom – and guess what? I found them on 23rd April, St. George’s Day!

That is definitely the most enthusiasm I have offered for this national day. If it were to be made a holiday, then we can talk.

Spring can be a time of shrooms, as the frosts end and the temperatures rise. We’ve had quite a lot of rain this spring in SE England and so some mushrooms will fruit in response. St. George’s mushroom is one of those springshrooms.

Like many people in the UK my sense of personal identity is not straightforward, and I don’t celebrate St. George’s Day. I have strong Irish roots and as a Londoner of 50% Scouse parentage I feel an affinity with a more regional, culturally complex identity, rather than one of red and white, chest-thumping ‘Englishness’, whatever that is.

It makes me wonder though – is this England’s unofficial national mushroom?

A simple online search shows up no such award, which is probably a good thing. Surely that accolade should go to honey fungus!

You may not be surprised to find that its common name changes depending on its location. In Germany the mushroom fruits in May and is known as Maipilz. That means ‘May mushroom’. In fairness to Maipilz, that’s only 8 days later.

St. George’s mushroom is also edible. I didn’t pick or eat this one, and it’s not on my radar to do so anytime soon. The above seems to have been nibbled free in actual fact. Also, I wouldn’t encourage people to forage from National Trust properties generally because I don’t want to get banned.

The cap turns brown over time making it look like a barbecued chicken piece

St. George’s mushroom appears to enjoy garden lawns, so if you’re lucky you may have one popping up outside your front/garden door. As ever, you should be cautious about eating wild white mushrooms as there are several toxic species which can be confused for edible ones.

Thanks for reading.

Fungi | Sussex Weald

Bogshrooms, and a life lived wild and free 🍄🐐

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

Mayo, Ireland, April 2023

I went for an evening walk down the old trackway to the foot of the mountain. The track was flooded, meaning that without wellies I had to find tussocks and rocks to move further. Where the track turned, I noticed a ram of some kind grazing up ahead. After a time, I realised it was a goat, most likely a wild goat from the flock that roams the mountain. I had never seen one so close before and began to feel some concern for it. Why was it down here in the floodplain rather than up there out of reach among the boulders and bogs?

Its bleating was weak, distressed. I felt anxiety rising, that I needed to act. I looked at my phone about guidance for finding a wild animal of this size, but it was stuff I already knew and I realised I wasn’t acting rationally. I walked forward, a little fearful that the goat may show aggression, so when it turned to look at me, I backed away and waited.

The goat lowered itself to a sitting position, bleating in a way that suggested distress, weakness. Its voice was breaking, fading. It tried to stand but its legs gave way. It lay with its head on the ground, bleating again. I hadn’t moved, realising what was happening. Its stomach stopped moving. I approached it where it lay, its ears and lips were trembling. Then, stillness. Its eye remained open, and did not move. It had passed away.

A life lived wild on the mountain had ended at its foot, in a very short space of time. There was very little visible suffering, though some fear as it realised it was losing its ability to graze and trot.

I continued on and headed up the mountain. Seeing the death of the wild goat made me want to press on, a gentle reminder that all life has its limits. To the west, Nephin appeared in the distance, Lough Conn as silvery as ever at its foot. In the south-west Croagh Patrick could be see behind a rank of wind turbines. As I reached a curve in the path, where a cleft had been carved into the hillside, a small group of wild goats appeared on the hilltop. We watched eachother for a while, before they headed off out of sight.

I reached the top for the first time since 2017. A broken flock of sheep circled me against the horizon of rocky outcrops, mountains and distant loughs. Being up there will always remind me of the times me and my Dad made it up, always out of breath and red-faced.

Surrounded by bogs and scars of turf cutting, I looked down to try find an unusual species of some kind that I might not see elsewhere, due to the remoteness of the place. Down in a small bit of bog, with sphagnum and other mosses, a group of golden mushrooms were growing.

I had a second camera with me that had a macro lens attached for ease. I took some photos, unsure of the species. Its gills were not unlike a waxcap (hygrocybe) but I knew so little about boglife that I was happy simply to find some shrooms.

I’m still waiting on feedback on iNaturalist, so this remains a mystery. Unless someone reading this knows and can add some information in the comments?

I headed back down the mountain and along the track. There the wild goat rested. I hadn’t imagined its death, and it wasn’t trying to fool me. I went back to the cottage unnerved, reminding myself of a life lived wild and free in the Ox Mountains.

Thanks for reading.

Fungi | Ireland

Snowy disco fungus ⛄

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

Dulwich, London, January 2023

I’ve helped build a lot of ‘dead hedges’ in my time. Basically ‘fences’ of wood and branches piled between two posts. They happen to be particularly supportive of fungi, along with amphibians and sometimes even nesting birds.

Whilst constructing one on a chilly January afternoon I noticed one of the logs had a smattering of cup fungi. Looking more closely I guessed that these were a type of cup fungus known as snowy disco (Lachnum virgineum). It’s one of the fungus names that really makes people smile, and not in a weird way for once.

Then again, it does sound like a night club in Reykjavic.

I referred to my fungi tomes for more information on the snowy disco, and found that there were actually rather a lot of these tiny but very classy-looking fungi in Europe.

Cup fungi are a different group to the typical gilled mushrooms or ‘basidiomycetes’ that drop spores. The cup fungi are ‘ascomycetes’ – the type found in lichen complexes – shoot their spores from an ‘ascus’ (plural – ‘asci’) instead.

It’s just another reminder that for those who can, it’s a much better environmental option to leave fallen wood in a woodland so the disco can do its thing.

Thanks for reading.

Fungi

Salmon egg slime mould 🐟

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

This is not a fungi post. If anything, it’s probably closer to animals. It also may exhibit signs of memory despite not having a brain. Sounds like you’re in the right place.

Tuesday 10th January 2023 was one of those awful January days in London. It rained a lot, was windy, and there was no direct sunlight to bask in.

Add to this the fact that the night before a fireball enjoyed a spectacular demise in the night sky, and was easy to view across much of the UK. At the time – 20:00 GMT – I was outside, in the dark, being distracted by the massive moon and a neighbour saying she didn’t want to run me over. Somehow, I missed the fireball and lived to hear about it on the radio the next morning.

Anyway, back down to Earth. Though the woods can be ghastly at this time of year, I find them to be a decent shout for slime moulds. Not to be proven wrong, I was proved right by the sight of little (read: tiny) orange beans at the path edge on an old oak log.

These little droplets of tangerine dream are commonly known by slime people as salmon eggs. It is amazing how these declining fish can fight their way up through places where there are no rivers, to lay their eggs in a bit of wood.

You know that was a joke, yes?

Slime moulds thrive in damp, dark places, usually in decaying wood that has been saturated by winter rainfall.

Elsewhere, the smaller polypores of turkeytail and the like were ‘showing nicely’ as the birders say, though rarely of a turkey’s tail around here.

Thanks for reading.

Macro | Fungi

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November 2025: beware of pity

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…

Winter oyster mushrooms 🍄

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

A chilly afternoon in the Weald of West Sussex on one of those days in early January when you remember their names again. “Moonday” 9th January 2023 was appropriate seeing as the famous old block of cheese was up in the sky that night, howling back down to us. A wolf moon, indeed.

Moons are easier to come by than ‘shrooms, the main focus of my walk around a wet woodland reserve where the river ran free of its banks, merging among poplars like something from prehistory (i.e. no Internet).

A boardwalk cuts the edge of the wetlands where I usually expect to find velvet shank mushrooms. Along with scarlet elf cup, this is one of the winter gems of the fungal kingdom in Northern Europe. In truth, I didn’t find any that I could photograph without having to (theoretically) enter into a wetsuit or small boat.

Instead it was a coastal species that proved easiest to snap, if only in name. One of my favourite Twitter accounts and reader of this blog recently posted some oyster mushroom photos. Another timeline glimpse made me think – this is a seasonal trend, and I should keep an eye out in real life.

They’re a beautiful fungus with dark, purple-grey tops and pale, almost white gills underneath. They’re edible, but I was just there for the pics. You can buy them in the shops or grow them yourself at home. Another friend/regular reader even has them growing in her garden from timber sleepers. Well jel.

One of my favourite actual, single funguses lives here. I’m pretty sure it’s a willow bracket, growing from the bottom of a branch like a hat plucked off someone’s head below/a UFO/some kind of weird leather cushion from the Victorian period.

It makes me laugh every single time. A reminder: if some part of nature isn’t humouring you, “you’re not doing it right”.

Thanks for reading.

Fungi | Sussex Weald

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Summer-autumn 2025: unveiling the sun

Here’s my seasonal update of stuff you don’t need to know about, but then welcome to the Internet. What I’m writing Soon I will be self-publishing my third poetry collection, Fool’s Wood. It’s seven years since my last one and this collection has taken longer because of LIFE. There will be a booklet and also…

Salisbury’s oak timbers

Here’s another entry in my slow-blogging Oak Timbers series. You can view my galleries and posts archive here. I visited Salisbury in Wiltshire (south-west England) for the first time in 2023 and was really charmed by the place. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, Salisbury is the place for you. Here’s a gallery…

Podcast: September fungi walk 🍄

I’m getting into more of a routine of recording and editing audio, so here is the latest episode of Unlocking Landscapes. Listen on Podbean or via the usual platforms. Also via YouTube: https://youtu.be/y1K9Pqx68to?si=B-Fdhf3sdDH35Z8w Following on from July’s rather optimistic fungi walk, I popped back to the same area of ancient Wealden woodland to see if…

Wishing you a very jelly Christmas 🧠

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

On a recent visit to Streatham Common in SE London, I was taken aback by the number of December mushrooms.

In SE England we’ve switched from -5 one day, to 12C a few days later. The seasons seem to be collapsing around us, and then reviving themselves. It feels like the only reliability we may have in nature is the amount of light. At this point the Earth isn’t moving off on a different course anytime soon.

Billionaires with ideas need not reply.

Looking through the Common’s oak woodlands I was quite taken by a standing dead oak tree. It was such an unusual shape and it was hard to tell if it was still alive. It wasn’t, in the conventional sense.

Moving around the tree I noticed the frills of what looked to me to be a brain fungus and what iNaturalist has confirmed as Phaeotremella frondosa. It’s what keeps me looking again and again for this strange stuff. It is always a surprise, and so varied and diverse that each week can provide you with something different.

And with that, I would like to say thank you to everyone who has read and/or commented on my blogs this year. I really appreciate the support and interest.

My website’s traffic boomed this autumn as some of my fungi posts appear to have made it into search engines and held prominent positions. That isn’t massively important to me, but it is quite funny to watch readers increase almost in sync with mushrooms in the woods.

Writing and posting photos on here is a massive anchor for me. If I could do this everyday, I would. I will try my best to keep it going strong in 2023.

Thanks, as ever, for reading. Wishing everyone a peaceful and restful Christmas and New Year.

Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦

Daniel

Looking for birds in the frost and fog 🐦

Daniel Greenwood5 Comments

As seen on Sunday 11th December, my final guided walk of 2022 for London Wildlife Trust.

London woke to freezing fog with hoar frost in places, as temperatures stayed well below zero. These are difficult days to get out of bed, but the rewards of a foggy, frosty oak woodland are too good to miss.

In the woods the fog broke in places, shifting north, making for very tricky birdwatching conditions. We were treated to the tapping of a great spotted woodpecker searching for food in dead branches. Flocks of long-tailed tit hurried through holly and ivy.

One attendee wanted to see redwing for their annual list, which came eventually in an energetic flock high in an oak, then low by a small pond where the guelder rose berries still remained.

I was fascinated by the perspective of a couple who joined us. They were astonished to find ring-necked parakeets in their garden, a bird they had seen growing up in, and one found all across, India. London’s woods don’t sound the same without their shrieking nowadays, whatever the view is on that.

There were a few mushrooms still to be seen, mainly sulphur tuft, the allseeing fungus (it’s just so common), and turkeytail.

Unfortuntaly we didn’t manage to find firecrest or anything as outrageous as lesser redpoll, but it was still a lovely walk.

The photos shared here are taken on my Fairphone in RAW format, then processed in Lightroom. It’s pretty impressive what you can do now with phone cameras.

Thanks for reading.

London | Fungi | Bookings