Tag: puffball

August 31st – Autumn knocked on my door today, and I reluctantly let her in. I set out lunchtime for a ride over the Chase – after exploring Bevin’s Birches and the old quarries last week, my quest to find the remoter parts of this beautiful place has intensified. The wind – although no terribly bad – felt like it had been wrought on Satan’s back step, after the relatively still summer. It was chilly, too, and I felt the edge of the cold. The bracken is turning, the puffballs are growing well, and there is a hint of autumn everywhere you look, from the heaths of Gentleshaw, to the charm of Birches Valley. 

As fellow cyclist @Accidentobizaro said on Twitter:  ‘I know autumn is fab.I do.Mists, mulberries, colours, walks, scarves, cyclocross. I know. But [weeps inconsolably]’

October 5th – One of the best things about autumn is the sudden and prolific emergence of the mycology.  Yesterday, there was nothing of note on this twenty-metre long, 1 meter wide grass edge in Telford. Today, after a cold, damp night, two different types of puffballs, tricholoma,, field mushrooms and tough-shanks variously peppered the damp grass. What isn’t often appreciated about these curious fungi is that they aren’t separate organisms; the surface growth is merely a bloom for a surface, or subsurface organism. How cool is that?