Category: David

Another stroll by the Chapel Ash roundabout, another fly agaric mushroom had popped up its head in the canes.

It had appeared long enough ago for something to have had a good go at eating it.

The ruins of White Ladies Priory are in Shropshire, down a quiet country lane between Bishops Wood and Cosford.

It’s a National Trust property, linked to Boscobel House at the Bishops Wood end of the lane. Boscobel was originally a hunting lodge built on the Priory land.

There is free access to the ruins, down an often muddy dirt track off the lane.

Porcelain fungus are delicate-looking, often pure white mushrooms.

They grow, usually in clumps, on beech trees – sometimes quite high up.

These were more accessible because they were on a fallen trunk.

West Park squirrel pausing, ready to dart after peanuts.

Common funnel caps are medium-sized mushrooms. Pale brown, with a cap which dips down and darkens towards the centre,

They are indeed fairly common, and often found in woodland, like these which were growing in Himley Plantation.

Honey fungus is a very common fungus. It is very damaging economically: it is a parasite of many kinds of trees, killing them when it infests them.

It is very variable in form, probably different several species .

These had a surface which looked roughened.

The first three pictures are of the fungus on a (still) living tree in Baggeridge Country Park; this picture of a felled trunk in the grounds of Himley Hall.