Category: David

Candle snuff fungus, also called stag’s horn is a common fungus growing on dead wood (often tree stumps). It can grow up to an inch or two tall, and is most likely to be seen in the autumn and winter.

Views from the slopes of Sedgley Beacon out towards Shropshire. The Wrekin is in the centre-right of the skyline in the first picture, with the notch on the centre-left of the horizon marking where the Severn cuts its way into the Ironbridge Gorge.

Below the view is narrowed to the Wrekin, often described as having a whale-backed shape.

Fly agaric growing yards from Wolverhampton ring road. Although it is shaded by a branch of a young gorse, heavy rain has washed out the brightness from the red of the cap.

A shallow pool in the middle of the woods in Himley Plantation.

Grisettes are a group of gilled mushroom species with furrows round the upper edge of the cap duplicating the gills below. When fresh there is a ring around the stem. Related species are more strongly coloured (tawny grisette and orange grisette) but this is the grey one which gives its name to the group.

Dandelion in mid-November with the last few of the seeds of the “clock” still clinging on.