The early part of last winter must have been exceptionally good for fungi - either that, or this winter, so far, has been unusually poor. In the last few weeks we've seen very few of note and even those we find, like this golden chanterelle, have been decidedly sickly. Maybe that's about to change as, on our woodland walk this morning, we came across....
....the first fungus for some time which was both spectacular and, possibly, new to us. At first glance this looked like witches' butter but it isn't jelly-like and lacks the petal-shaped lobes of that species. Also, witches' butter is common locally on dead gorse branches while this was on a small branch of a hardwood tree.
Having said it isn't witches' butter I don't know what it is, though there is another very similar yellow fungus called Tremella aurantia which grows on hardwoods.
We then went on to find several more fungi, none of them, sadly, the sort I'm prepared to spend hours identifying. This one, again on hardwood, was tiny - the lowest lobe is about 10mm across, and....
....this rather shapeless mass wasn't much more exciting, or much bigger.
It was, however, good to come across....
....some 'ordinary' gilled fungi growing very prettily on a moss-covered, rotten tree stump.
The early part of last winter must have been exceptionally good for fungi - either that, or this winter, so far, has been unusually poor. In the last few weeks we've seen very few of note and even those we find, like this golden chanterelle, have been decidedly sickly. Maybe that's about to change as, on our woodland walk this morning, we came across....
I tried to look up the one similar to "witche's butter" but without success, however I did notice Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca which has gills and might be a contestant for the previous picture; but you know fungi better than me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Derryck. I know precious little about fungi. My main interest in them is in their variety: one just never knows what one is going to stumble upon next. And, yes, the first picture could well be the false chanterelle.
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