Tag: Earth

#365daysofbiking Stars on earth

October 1st – I had to go to have a medical procedure, so I was out in a rainy dawn on a quick spin to get the ride in for the day.

On Clayhanger Common, a first for the year: Earthstar fungus.

This remarkable, almost unreal looking fungi grows quite widely now but was once a rarity, and there are lots on Clayhanger Common from now until Christmas.

They work like puffballs, and the central sphere pops releasing it’s spores to the wind.

They always look like plasticine to me. Beautiful, curious things.

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#365daysofbiking Oh, balls!


September 3rd – Good to see the fungus starting to kick off for the autumn, I adore the mycology.

These earth balls have appeared on Clayhanger Common, and although not prime specimens, they’re the start of a season of wonders of the fungi world that’ll fascinate me for weeks if not months.

These will grow, then ripen until ready, whence they’ll burst upon contact with some passing animal, spreading their spores for another season – and the cycle will continue.

One great thing about the autumn for sure.

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#365daysofbiking Stars on earth:

October 27th – A grey, very very low day where things again went horribly wrong. I’m not having much luck with weekends at the moment.

Riding back from a fools errand in Walsall Wood, on the canal between Catshill Junction and the Silver Street Bridge, I noticed that the colony of earthstar fungus that I thought last winter’s cold weather had killed off completely has actually survived with some decent examples.

Hopefully some decent weather might help the group recover and re-spore successfully to give them some better years in future.

A rare bright spot in a very grim, down day.

October 2nd – This has really, really surprised me. Mooching about the industrial estate where I work in Darlaston, I was looking for some paperwork that had blown up the road, and retrieving it from a hedge, spotted these beauties thriving beneath.

I see earth star fungus on Clayhanger Common in December, but wasn’t aware they grew this early. Looking like they’re clay or plastic, they are the most extraordinary fungi I’ve ever seen, and finding them is a real treat – there is a whole colony there, growing undisturbed in a roadside bed hardly anyone would ever notice.

Amusingly, Tumblr (the blog platform this journal runs on) has a system that automatically scans images posted, and detected these photos as being indecent. Sent for re-review, they were obviously passed as a false alert.

It just goes to show, some shapes recur throughout nature…

December 31st – Remember the peculiar fungus I found a few weeks ago on Clayhanger Common – the Rosy Earthstar? Well, today I passed the same spot again and stopped to have a scout around. It seems that there were a whole bunch of them here – now the leaves have gone and the undergrowth is less dense, it can be seen there were at least 25 of these remarkable fungi.

Interesting too to see how they go over, seemingly with the ‘petals’ of the star rotting away first.

Hope we get them again next year and this wasn’t just a fluke. I’d love to watch them grow.

August 2nd – Victoria Park, Darlaston, and a sign of the advancing seasons awakens me to the idea that summer is ebbing away: earthball fungus, looking pristine and fresh growing well in the grass.

Relatives of the better known puffball (indeed, some call the pigskin poison puffball), earthballs have no aperture to let the spores escape, they merely collapse when ripe and allow the wind to do the rest.

They are mildly toxic and can cause bad reactions, including a very bad stomach and allergy-like symptoms, such as rhinitis.

Fascinating fungus though.