It seems it’s a good year for fungi. Ever since I moved to my current home I’ve become more and more aware of the abundant autumn harvest and have even been on a course to learn more about which are edible and which are not.
Trouble is I came away terrified and decided I’d never eat another one, ever again.
I still pick the field mushrooms that grow locally and are delicious but I now limit my fungal forays to looking and admiring everything else rather than wondering if something is poisonous or not.
After some heavy rain, a sunny autumn spell is a great time to go out into the woods or fields looking for fungi and the other day we took a detour while out walking with the dog.
The local woods are simply alive with the most amazing range of colourful fungi I have ever seen. I don’t know exactly what most of them are, but we found a variety of purple, maroon and brown russulas and also the unmistakable Fly Agaric.
Most were golf ball size and about to expand into small dinner plate sized toadstools.
They looked amazing in the dappled woodland light; it was like fairyland in there.
The ground was carpeted with lovely fresh green moss and dotted with dozens of different fungi species.
Magic.
