King Alfred’s cakes, also known as cramp balls and as the coal fungus. Fairly common, but sometimes similar in colour to the bark of the trees (often dead trees) they grow on, so easily missed. This fungus was used for tinder when lighting fires took real skill.
These were growing on the trunk of a tree, blown down by gales a couple of years ago, at the edge of the Bantock Park Pitch and Putt course. One of the pictures also shows a horses hoof fungus beginning to expand.