Growing from one of the silver birch trunks which mark the edge of the paths in Old Nursery Wood, a bracket fungus, a birch polypore by the side of the shortest path between Old Nursery Pond and Willow Pond.
One of the other names for this fungus is the razor strop fungus. At one time, they were used to sharpen the edge of old-fashioned cut-throat razors.
Shaggy inkcaps, probably the largest, reasonably common mushroom-shaped fungus likely to be seen around. This is their season. Akll but one of these had emerged so recently that their caps hadn’t yet flattened and spread. They were by one of the pools in Himley Plantation.
The leaves of a lone bogbean, growing between the bulrushes at the edge of Old Nursery Pond, and the water lilies further out into the water.
Another mushroom species I failed to identify, even though they have a piecrust look to the rim of the cap. Quite a lot of them were scattered around, seemingly at random, in the woodland right behind Old Nursery Pond
A close view of the seeds ripening on a purple loosestrife- this one was growing by the pond in Compton Park.
Another version of the same shot. I thought the background was intrusive in the original version, so for once I used an image editor for something more extensive than cropping in on the main points of interest. I’m not sure which version I prefer.
Another splash of October colour from an autumn-flowering plant in a front garden: a clematis tangutica on Richmond Road.
