Wolves Wild

This medicinal herb has been used as a sedative for at least a couple of thousand years.

Blackening waxcaps are small mushrooms which change colour from an ocherous yellow to black. The process has just begun on the first fungus.

These are somewhat further down the road.

From here, the toadstools are well on the way to complete blackening.

They are small enough to be half-hidden in short grass, as are other waxcaps.

These were in the lawn of flats near to West Park.

They don’t trap their prey in a web. Instead, they hunt by stalking and leaping.

On one of the plants being grown in the Conservatory, Bantock House.

Cuckoo spit can be found on many plants in late spring/early summer. Nothing to do with the increasingly rare bird, but a protective foam for an insect larva, a froghopper. This one was on the top of a nettle which was going to seed.

Scrambled egg slime is also known as dog vomit slime. It is common on dead wood, including wood mulch, in wet conditions. So no surprise this arrived this summer.

It was on a tree stump which was also playing host to a bracket fungus, probably some kind of polypore.

Twenty-four hours after these pictures were taken, all that was left of the slime was a dark stain on the wood where it had been.