A beautiful afternoon for a fungi walk in Childwall Woods.
Seven members booked onto the walk, which took us around the darker, damper areas of the woods, looking for the different types of fungi that appear at this time of year when the season is just right.
Fungi are neither plants nor animals, but a kingdom of their own, with approximately 100,000 species. They fall into three main categories: the recyclers, breaking down dead material and returning it to the soil; the pathogenic fungi, which break down and kill living wood; and then there are the mycorrhizal fungi, which bring in nutrients that tree roots can’t reach and exchange them for sugars from the tree.
We saw all of these types of fungi, some looking very beautiful, but all doing an important job in the ecosystem of the woods.
Here are a few.
Common bonnets
Glistening ink caps
Mycena fumosa
Split gill
Shaggy scaly caps
Species list
Turkey tail – Trametes versicolor
Southern Bracket – Ganoderma australe
Hairy Curtain Crust – Stereum hersutum
Oyster mushroom – Pleurotus ostreatus
Artist Polypore – Ganoderma applanatum
Lumpy bracket –Trametes gibbosa
The Split Gill – Schizophyllum commune
Puffball – Basidiomycota
Slender club fungus –Typhula juncea
Fly Agaric – Amanita muscaria
candlesnuff fungus – Xylaria hypoxylon
Jelly rot fungus – Phlebia tremellosa
Purple Jellydisc – Ascocoryne sarcoides
Honey fungus – Armillaria mellea
Sulphur tuft – Hypholoma fasciculare
Porcelain fungus – Oudemansiella mucida
Purple Brittlegill – Russula undulata
Glistening inkcaps – Coprinellus micaceus
Shaggy scalycap – Pholiota squarrosa,
Clouded Funnel – Clitocybe nebularis
Common bonnets – Mycena galericulata
Willow Shield – Pluteus salicinus
Mycena fumosa
Trustees present
Ian Headey
Brenda Cameron – Author
Photographs are the author’s own