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Friday 10 October 2014

Shrooms; Foragers Diary

I particularly enjoy foraging for edible fungi, mainly because I particularly enjoy eating them but also for a bit of a challenge. One of my favourite fungi is the parasol, it has a slightly nutty flavour and large specimens are quite common. 

I found these ones on Cannock Chase over the weekend;

Parasols have quite widely spaced pure white gills.  

A large flaky cap 

They have this typical 'snake skin' type surface to their stem, and a pronounced ring left on the stem when the cap opens which can be slid up and down the stem. 

This was the primary reason for visiting the chase though, to look at the damage that deer can do to woodlands, look at the browse line here where the deer have cleanly bitten off all the twigs and leaves of these beech trees below a certain height. Notice that they don't enjoy the bracken as much though. 

Deer will often scrape tree bark with their antlers either to de-mark their territory or just to rub the velvet off their antlers. 

Saw this fascinating birch tree as well over the weekend. where it's limbs touch the ground it has sprouted new roots and formed this strange sprawling formation.

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