Fungi Foraging

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I am a member of the UK Veg Gardeners’ forum, which I use quite frequently for interacting with fellow gardeners and veg growers. Despite its name, the forum hosts discussion of much more than just vegetables – flowers, for instance – and fungi. A new Group has just been set up called the Fungi Foraging Faction. I expect to be using it to share information with fellow fungi enthusiasts, because I am very interested in fungi, but know far too little about them.

I’m feeling inspired to write about fungi today because I saw some nice ones on sale in a Farm Shop at the weekend. You often see cultivated mushrooms for sale, but wild ones are rarely obtainable. I expect they have plenty of them in places like Borough Market in London, but not round where we live! These photos are very poor, I’m afraid. I snapped them hurriedly with my phone, and I don’t have the steadiest of hands.

The most expensive ones were Girolles, at £43.15 per kilo, but there were many others priced at more than £20 per kilo, such as the Trompettes at £39.25.

I have been thinking about how many types of fungi I could conclusively identify. The photos below are of ones I know. I wonder if you can identify them too? (Names are at the end of this post).





Key to photos:
NB: I don’t guarantee that these are correct, but I’m 99% sure!
A – Jew’s Ear Fungus – Auricularia Auricula-Judae
B – Earthstar – Geastrum Triplex
C – Shaggy Inkcap Coprinus Comatus
D – Fly Agaric Amanita Muscaria
E – Birch Polypore Piptoporus Betulinus
F – Cauliflower Fungus Sparassis Crispa
G – Witch’s Butter Tremella Mesenterica
H - Orange Waxcap Hygrocybe aurantiosplendens
I – Sulphur Tuft – Hypholoma Fasciculare
J - Sickener Mushroom  Russula Emetica


P.S. If the line spacings in this post are odd, I’m sorry about this but there is nothing I can do about it. Blogger seems to have decided that I have to have blank lines in some places where they are not necessary, and to have no spaces where they really ARE required! And to make it worse, it all looks different in the Edit mode, as compared with Preview, or the published post.  Grrrrrr!

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