Fungi Friday 🍄

South Downs Way, West Sussex, November 2023

Here’s a new sighting for me!

I don’t want to identify the churchyard I visited, but it was along the South Downs Way in West Sussex. I would say that most churchyards in the South Downs will have good fungal diversity, so just go for it!

I spotted these little black growths in the grasslands, expecting to see the more colourful caps of waxcaps. Churchyards are excellent for rare fungi, mainly because this stable, ancient grassland ecosystem is itself now rare.

These are earthtongues, Geoglossum.

I suppose they could be mistaken for dead man’s fingers or dead mole’s fingers, but they’re different.

You can see the bovine-esque tongue on these phone pics.

They really do look like liquorice. So perhaps a local Sussex name should be bovine liquorice, or cow’s tongue liquorice.

Thanks for reading.