Fungi Friday 🍄

Dulwich, London, 9th November 2023

Happy belated Fungi Friday. Here are some images from south-east London during prime mushroom season. It was bonnet o’clock, as this post demonstrates.

Bonnets (Mycena) are a big group of mushrooms and I haven’t done enough work to identify them consistently. Perhaps the fact they’re only really found in the autumn (I think) prevents spending more time with them.

Most of the mushrooms seen here were in a fenced area designed to protect soil from compaction. The fencing has been a great success and the number of mushrooms seen here were not present 10 years ago when the area was experiencing footfall. Woodland managers take note.

Burgundydrop bonnet is a lovely species, seen here on an oak log next to a path.

These must be clustered bonnet. Again the mushrooms are in groups and the colours don’t vary so much really among species, which makes them more difficult to ID easily.

I do enjoy seeking out bonnets among the rays (the horizontal crevices, vertical when the tree is alive) of the fallen oak trees.

The star of this show was lilac bonnet, also known as rosy bonnet. They look like sweets. I saw more here than I have ever seen in one place.

Here they are from above.

This was an interesting one. I don’t know the species but was intrigued by it, as it’s not one I see very often, if ever. The pattern on the cap made me wonder if it was a dapperling?

Shaggy parasols are pretty consistent in wooded parts of south London, they were present in good numbers here. They always do well in shade.

Yikes. I was baffled about whether this was a pestle puffball or a common. It just seemed way too long!

Sulphur tuft here just kicking back enjoying the day.

A nice little community of small stagshorn growing on some decaying oak wood. This photo is stacked (in camera) which is why so much is in focus. Amazing what cameras can do nowadays.

Thanks for looking.