Fungi Friday 🍄

West Sussex, November 2023

No awards being won here for mushroom pics, but these are my first shaggy inkcaps of the season.

Underneath this lime tree, among the litter, I spotted some unusual shapes and off colours (from the yellow of the leaves).

Kneeling down (with an audience, which is hard to get used to) I could see they were shaggy inkcaps. They often appear upright, living up to the name of lawyer’s wig.

This is a mushroom that often grows in grasslands like this, actually quite often in newly-laid turf. It can be found in October and November and is edible when in its early stages generally before the cap has become separated from the stipe.

We’ve had extremely high amounts of rain in recent weeks and the mushrooms are basically melting in many places. I do think this has been a short season, but there will be a few things popping up after the rain. That could last a few weeks, but the first frosts have already arrived and these things (mushrooms) are 90% water (or so) and that doesn’t bode well! We’ll see.

Thanks for reading.