Due to Christmas hols I’m a couple of days late to Fungi Friday on my blog, morphing instead to Mushroom Monday!
A couple of weeks ago I spent some time at Lullington Heath in the South Downs National Park. Lullington Heath is a National Nature Reserve with the super rare habitat chalk heath. It had lots of little waxcaps fruiting at the time.
As you can see Lullington Heath is dominated by gorse which affects the diversity of plants and fungi that can prosper there.
The gorse forms a scrubby woodland and provides ample habitat for one of the most striking species of fungus: yellow brain. It’s also known as witches’ butter, a lovely colloquial name that hints at the role fungi has in British folklore.
This is the yellow brain from the pics above. I cut it out before it was cleared and brought it into the sun. I hid it further away in the gorse afterwards.
It’s actually parasitic on crust fungi which you can see on the right hand side here.
Keep an eye out for my fungal year 2019, an account of things I found and photographed this year, which I’ll be hoping to post in January.
Merry Christmas to all the funguys and gals out there!
Daniel Greenwood 