Category: David

The wayside fruit of autumn.

If this is the blusher, it is a close relative of, and frequently confused with, panther caps.

This grouping was within yards of the others posted a couple of days ago which seemed more definitely to be panther caps.

Now grown beyond its earlier state here.

Related to the more brightly coloured fly agaric toadstool.

It is even more dangerous to ingest than that species, containing a higher concentration of the same hallucenogenic/poisonous ingredients.

Autumn is the season of fungi, berries, leaves changing colour, and spiders, many of which become more noticeable at this time of year.

The one above is a cross spider, a common spider in gardens. Below is one of a smaller species which I didn’t manage to identify.

The inkcaps are a family of mushrooms which spread their spores by deliquescing. Their caps are transformed into a black slime, which is indeed the pores.

Another name for this species is lawyers wig. At a certain stage in their decomposition the caps can look very like a barrister’s less than pristine headgear (below and especially above).

The specimens pictured here show the range of stages from newly emerged to almost completely deliquesced.