Tag: honeyfungus

#365daysofbiking Shroom to manoeuvre

Monday, September 28th 2020 – This journal is now so venerable that I feel it has seasonal traditions, and one of the most important to me is it’s devotion to documenting the fungus season with the many photogenic and interesting varieties of toadstool, ball, mould and slime that abound in autumn.

The mycology is tragically overlooked – it’s a huge kingdom completely different to any other, and without it life on earth could not function at all. And when it blooms and fruits, it’s stunning in its otherworldly beauty.

So far this dry autumn, there hasn’t been much fungal action but with showers in recent days hopefully the shrooms will have the trigger they need to emerge.

I’ll kick it all off this year with these humble but beautiful honey fungus, spotted by the canal in Darlaston on my way to work. Hopefully the first of many this year.

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#365daysofbiking Stumped

October 19th – Nipping over to Walsall Wood on an errand, I crossed the sadly fading old Oak Park – not the leisure centre of the same name, but the formerly ornamental park that gave the centres their name.

Near a bench by the old waterlogged bowling green, an amazingly vivid colony of what I think is honey fungus.

There was a fair collection of disparate fungus here, to be fair. About the only thing that seems to be doing well in this sad, lost park.

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#365daysofbiking The spore of the moment

October 6th – Another day with the cold and no energy, but an unexpectedly fine afternoon with sunny spells. It was, however, rather blustery and Chasewater had white-topped waves beating it’s shores.

I roved for a couple of hours around the common, canals and Chasewater looking for fungi, and was rewarded with the usual suspects – good fly agaric, ammonite, puffballs, honey fungus, polypores and earth balls.

But there was one find I was most pleased with – and a species I’ve not seen since I was a child: Amethyst deceiver.

These tiny, delicate, beautifully purple shrooms are actually edible and absolutely gorgeous. Hard to spot at first, they look brown at first, until you see them in the light – then the magic happens.

A great afternoon against my expectations.

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October 15th – Sometimes, all you want to do is tear up the trails and get rid of the pressures of the previous days, and on a borrowed 29er, that’s exactly what I did.

It’s amazing how, late on a Sunday afternoon with dusk encroaching, the Chase is deserted, as if most of the bikers, dog walkers and explorers are only fair-weather friends. But this period – with empty trails, beautiful subdued colour and a wealth of fungi, flora and wildlife, is a magical time.

I crossed Rainbow Hill to Birches Valley, then up Penkridge Bank to Rifle Range Corner, down Abrahams Valley to Seven Springs, back to Stepping Stones, up the Sherbrook Valley and back via Brindley Heath, much of it in peaceful darkness.

Flowing down the trail, hearing owls, dear and startling rabbits and badgers, a fantastic evening ride that was just what I needed to refresh my jaded mind.