Early October Fungi

One of the things I really like about the fungus family is that so many of the members of this huge group have such down-to-earth names, like this one. It's pink, its cap looks a bit like one of those silly hats ladies wear to Ascot, so it's called the rosy bonnet mushroom, Mycena rosea. Sadly, this was another example of a fungus we've found nowhere else, growing at the spot where we look for the rare stinkhorns.

This, too, is well named if, that is, I've identified it correctly as Clitocybe nebularis, the clouded funnel or clouded agaric. I'm not sure what the 'clouded' refers to but, to me, it does look like clouds massing on the horizon. Unlike the rosy bonnet, there are plenty of these in the local woods. it was once considered a fine eating mushroom but now, having caused "some alarming gastric upsets", it's listed as poisonous.

In my report on the local fungi of 24th September I said we had found the largest fungus yet, a parasol which was a foot across. Well, this one runs it a good second, being somewhere around 10" across. It's another of the gills, Russula adusta, the blackening brittlegill - maybe.

The first three fungi in this report are all 'gills', with distinct ridges running out radially from the top of the stem to the margins of the cap. This one is a 'pore' which means that the underside of the cap has....

....a sponge-like structure. I'm not really sure what it is - which is true of most of my identifications - but it may be Leccinum holopus, the ghost or white birch bolete.

By contrast, this is one where I'm fairly certain of my identification. It's the dusky puffball Lycoperdon nigrescens, and is included because our previous experience of this golfball sized fungus has been of isolated individuals. This group has been beautifully picked out by the low sun.

I thought this very smart fungus might be the yellow club fungus Clavulinopsis helvola or the golden spindle, C. fusiformis, but both are described as unbranched, so I think it's most likely to be 

Calocera viscosa, the yellow stagshorn, which is described as growing out of rotten wood, as this one is.