Redlead Roundhead, Stropharia aurantiaca: once a rare species, now sometimes all over the woodchip under trees in parks.
Chicken of the Woods Laetiporus sulphureus on Red Oak. It’s very good to eat … if you can reach it!
Hare’s Foot Inkcap, Coprinus lagopusBonnet mushrooms, Mycena sp. Hundreds of these delicate little fungi on the woodchip under almost every tree.
A yellow Brittlegill, Russula cf farinipes
A grey Brittlegill, Russula; maybe R. cyanoxantha or R. brunnoviolacea
Bolete under Caucasian Fir, cf Slippery Jack Suillus luteus
Wrinkled Club, Clavulina rugosa, a bit unusualBrown cap, lilac gills … Wood Blewit, Lepista nuda. Delicious, if you can find them somewhere you’re allowed to pick them!
Young Blewits: now that’s an amazing colour! (absolutely no enhancement of any kind)
Clouded Funnel, Clitocybe nebularis: young specimens with cap still domed (that was confusing!), but top (see next photo) distinctively cloudy. Gills crowded and decurrent, white.
Young Clouded Funnels. Larger specimens develop a flattened or slightly funnel-shaped cap, and the gills become much more obviously decurrent.
Upright Coral fungus Ramaria stricta, in a flowerbed with woodchipsOyster Mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus, on fallen tree trunkShaggy Parasol, Chlorophyllum (Macrolepiota) rhacodes
Pointed Club Fungus, Clavaria acuta, in Gunnersbury Triangle. Surely Astrid Lindgren got the idea for her ghostlike little people, the Hattifnattars, from these tiny delicate fungi, silent among the fallen leaves.
Tan Ear fungus, Otidea alutacea, a ground-living member of the Pezizaceae (Ascomycetes). Unlike Peziza which forms a soft cup, Otidea has a vertical slit, making it more like an ear really. On soil below the big Oak tree behind the main pond in Gunnersbury Triangle.
Update: Glad to see there’s been quite a bit of interest in this page. Good news for you, then: on the 2021 Fungus Foray (photo), we all saw quite a few Tan Ears dotted about the western side of the reserve.
Each cup is no bigger than your little fingernail. The cups grow on damp compost which the workers in Kew Gardens heap thickly under the trees. The “eggs” are called Peridioles, and they’re basically little bags of spores; they are splashed out of the cups by rain and the spores can then germinate. The family is the Nidulariaceae, which surprisingly is part of the Agaricales (normal-looking Basidiomycete mushrooms). species is the Common Bird’s Nest, Crucibulum laeve. One of the cups is still developing and is covered by a membrane. Yep, a different Bird’s Nest Fungus with a larger, greyer, frilly cup. This seems to be the Field Bird’s Nest, Cyathus olla.
Mottled Birch Bolete, Leccinum variicolor, in Gunnersbury Triangle. The species is edible (if found in quantity!) but not nearly as good as the Orange Birch Bolete.
Psathyrella, a smallish toadstool with a fragile stem, a cousin of the Inkcaps (Coprinus)
Yes you spotted it, not a fungus. A Smooth Newt under a nearby refugium.
These seem to be young Agaricus, probably Wood Mushrooms, in the ivy and leaf-litter.
Well, EVERYBODY noticed this mushroom! Giant Funnel, Leucopaxillus giganteusAmethyst Deceiver, Laccaria amethystina, very different (alas!) from the delicious Wood Blewit which also has “blue legs”.
Three Stars! Geastrum triplex x 3 in Gunnersbury TriangleA different Geastrum in Alick Henrici’s hand, so we now have two species of the genus in the Triangle. It has only 2 layers, not the 3 (obviously) of G. triplex. It looks much like G. hygrometricum, the Barometer Earthstar, but there are at least 10 species so we’d best wait for Alick’s microscope examination of the spores.
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
