Mushroom adventures

It's no secret - we are mushroom geeks! All five of us actually enjoy "hunting" for them in the woods.

Sunday we went out specifically to go shrooming - hoping to find some unusual ones.

Never pick any unless you are sure they are safe. There is an app called Myco Pro which you can get for your smart phone - it is great for helping to ID mushrooms when you're out.

Many look very similar so don't be fooled. In general brightly coloured ones are usually poisonous.

Here are a few that we discovered:

Porcelain Fungus, is specific to beech wood. It appears in autumn on dead trunks and on fallen branches, and occasionally it also grows on dead branches high up in living trees.

This could be a lilac fibrecap or an amethyst deceiver?

This bolete mushroom (above) is edible as when cut in half it did not stain blue.

The Fly Agaric (above),is a hallucinogen and must be considered poisonous. These attractive fungi often appear in groups and are a common sight in all kinds of woodlands.

Sulphur Tufts fruiting on fallen trees, decaying stumps or, occasionally, hollow trunks of living trees.

We also found lots of common yellow russala and puffballs. The Tower Woods in Westerham, Kent are a lovely place to explore. We also found a toad and a little frog and loads of sweet chestnuts.

Some cows had escaped from a field and had wandered into the woods and we found the old crumbling tower.

I'm still hoping to find some unusual looking ones and maybe now it's half term, we can go on a few more shrooming adventures.

#mushroomhunting #foraging #fungi