Fungi Friday 🍄

Happy Fungi Friday!

I nipped over to my local woodland on Saturday 14th October to try and catch the mushroom boom. It was quite dark by the time I got there but still worth it.

My first sighting was this beautiful blusher at the side of the track, shining in the lowering light. They are very photogenic when first appearing.

Fly agaric was very common but none were in particularly great condition, as you can see from the photos. They are highly sought after by slugs.

This false deathcap actually fooled me. I thought it was a deathcap, but about 30 seconds later I realised it wasn’t.

The highlight of this short walk was finding these very small hedgehog mushrooms. I took two home to share with my partner as she’d never tried them before. There were a lot more that I left there. They seem to be having a stronger year than 2022 but they’re quite small. Still early in the season for them as they can go into December.

iNaturalist’s fungi community have come back with an ID of Lactarius sect Deliciosi. I was interested to see how many had been cut with a knife and the stipes left, which you can see in the top left image. People were obviously foraging them for the pot. I would like to spend more time getting to know milkcaps and building my confidence in their ID.

A small patch of rustgills growing under a fallen beech tree.

Oyster mushrooms seen since last week are progressing well, always a joy to photograph.

Thanks for reading.