Fungi Friday 🍄

Horsham, West Sussex, September 2025

This is a rather textural post of phone pics from early September. I was walking along the River Arun one lunchtime when I spotted a massive fungal outpouring a short distance away. In among the nettles stood a massive fallen oak, its trunk and branches pried open by time, water, heat and fungi.

It didn’t take long to spot that this was chicken of the woods. I am literally pointing to it. I absolutely love this fungus. It reminds me of my days as a woodland officer in south London when the sheer amount of hours spent among trees meant I would see it several times between April and November. Now I’m a keyboard warrior I have to go looking for it, or just get lucky in passing.

As you can see from the photos it was well past its prime, not like this one back in the summer.

I was actually surprised to see how much of it still remained intact, such is the clamour to eat this fungus. Not from me, I actually think it’s important to leave it for spore production and because a lot of invertebrates depend on it. That’s just my view. But if people learning about the edibility of chicken of the woods is a gateway to an interest in fungi and therefore in conservation, that is a very positive thing.

This excellent article on the Kew website goes into detail about its ecology. The fungus is growing from deep fissures in the oak limbs, where it will be opening up new opportunities for many other forms of life.

This does indeed look like fried chicken. Also lost souls.

Old, ‘dead’ oak trees are one of the cornerstones of woodland fungal, plant and animal life. We should never clear these trees away, and they should be left as large and intact as possible. That way the wood can hold more moisture and life in the decaying boughs.

From the brown decay you can see on the right of the fungus, you can appreciate that there is still a lot of decaying to be done.

To finish, here’s the miraculous growth in all its glory. The one on the right looks a bit like Shakespeare with his ruff.

Thanks for reading.

Chicken of the woods