Fungi Friday 🍄

Happy Fungi Friday! 🍄

I led just the one community mushroom walk this year, with the Friends of Ashenground and Bolnore Woods in Haywards Heath, West Sussex. It was on Saturday 12th October.

I think this was the peak of the mushrooms season in West Sussex, what has not been a particularly rich one. So it goes.

Here’s what we found – and of course thanks to everyone who came along.

Most of the fungi was seen on a massive old oak (approx. 200 years) that has recently come down in a storm (see the header image). Black bulgar was growing all over the tree trunk. It’s interesting because I have observed this species on oaks when the entire tree or part of it has just fallen. It does not return the next year. I wonder if there’s any research on this.

These bonnets had popped up along the edge of a fallen limb.

Stump puffball was growing in the same place that we found it in 2023. You guessed it – on a stump.

Stump brittlestem is a species I haven’t taken much time to identify. This was growing on another stump.

What does this blog post tell you? There were very few, if any, soil-based mushrooms. Something is just not right in the woods is Sussex this year. The stumps and the logs seem to be the only place you could be sure to find much in abundance.

Thanks for reading.

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