Category: David

Two toadstools which grow in association with birch trees. A brown birch bolete and a fly agaric which had come up within a few inches of each other under one of the silver birches of Bantock Park.

Chinese lanterns, a decorative garden plant. The source of their name is obvious.

Field guides rate the frequency of the pipe club fungus as “occasional” or “rare”. Perhaps that’s because its elegant fruiting bodies aren’t easy to spot even when they are growing in short grass.

Larva of a ladybird almost dead centre on an oxeye daisy. The insect has perhaps had its final moult before it becomes one of the first generation of adults next spring.

Tiny, pure white mushrooms, half-hidden even in recently cut grass. Snowy waxcaps are a common mushroom of chemical-free lawns

Bright red berries of a bryony looking like large gems strung along a necklace as the plant climbs over the hawthorns in a hedge.