Hello Folks! Fungi come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colours. Whilst some are edible, others are poisonous and best avoided. They can be found almost everywhere and are often easily overlooked. Many can be seen in woodland and meadow, especially at this time of year.Each Monday for 12 weeks I will be posting a little teaser for you. Without looking in books or on the internet (i.e - no cheating), see if you can identify the UK fungus. On Wednesday, so as long as no-one has guessed it, I will post one clue. On Friday I will post the answer along with some additional information for your interest.MYSTERY FUNGI QUIZ #10Clue: a succulencies order lip root.
Very interesting, Caroline, you learn something new everyday. I know nothing about Greek mythology so had to look it up on Wikipedia. On there it's shown as Amalthea so did MrsT just make a typo or is there an alternative spelling.
____________________________________________________________________
Tony
My Flickr Photostream
Oh the joys of being dyslexic TJ, I had not even noticed that....a bit like Eric Morcambes piano playing...all the right letters but not necessarily in the right order :)
C in J
Cin J
Congratulations to all of you who guessed Horn of plenty (Craterellus cornucopioides). First a bit about the clues: a succulencies order lip root. This is an anagram of the Latin for this fungus Craterellus cornucopioides. The second clue: That's more than enough Amalthea. I apologise for the typo!! Amalthea was a Greek goddess who took it upon herself to hide the young Zeus from Cronos, who had a habit of eating his newborn sons. Zeus accidentally broke the magic horn from Amalthea's head. This horn 'Cornucopia' was said to have had the goddesses divine power of providing unending supplies of food. Despite being edible, the Horn of plenty has limited availability of a few weeks.
Belonging to the Cantharellaceae family, the Horn of plenty is a dark funnel shaped fungus with tough flesh. Found in decidious woodland, often under beech, they can still occur well into winter. Despite its dark flesh, it has white spores and can make a rather nice sauce!
A picture of Horn of plenty can be found here.
Did you know that: this fungus is also known as the Trumpet of death!
Keep an eye out for next week’s fun(gi) quiz!
Take care,
Claire
As I remember this as a black looking fungus,I can understand the Trumpet of Death name.
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can
Quite a sinister looking fungus. I'm not sure I would want to make a sauce with it.