It’s the first couple of weeks back from the holidays for the reserve team and we’ve come back to the aftermath of the biggest flood the reserve has ever seen! The plus side to this dank, damp, dreich weather is that there is a fantastic range of fungi around. I’ve never spent much time trying to identify fungi before and found it a bit like the first time I tried to identify moths - tricky and confusing. However I’m sure, just like the moths, that once I get my eye in it will become easier.
First off is this bracket fungus, turkeytail (trametes versicolor), one of our most common fungi which can be found in the play area:
The name turkeytail originates from the USA and replaced the UK name “many-zoned polypore”. The USA name is a lot easier to remember, not only because it’s less of a mouthful but also because of the fungi’s resemblance to a turkey’s tail.
Another one which I’m quite familiar with is jelly ear (auricularia auricula-judae):
This is most frequently found on elder but can be found on many other species.
The following were found on a living tree, which is probably pretty poorly due to having all this growing on it:
After much perusing of the fungi guide I think the gorgeous orange one is velvet shank (flammulina velutipes). As this is so frequently found in winter, early on it gained the name winter fungus. The lumpy jelly one was a lot harder but my guess would be dacrymyces capitatus.
Another tricky one is what I think is a common earthball:
All the puffballs and earthballs are a lot lighter in colour so it looks like this is covered in some silt left over from the flood. This made it quite difficult to identify, and I’m still not sure I got it right! If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know.
Last of all is the lovely fly agaric (amanita muscaria). I found it a couple of months ago but it’s too pretty not to share: