AWEG head off on a Fungal Foray

AWEG head off on a Fungal Foray

Earlier this week 20 hardy members of Audlem Wildlife and Ecology Group travelled to Brown Moss, Whitchurch, in search of Fungi. Our guide was Dave, but he’s more commonly known as “Fungal Punk”, he had travelled down from Stockport with his partner, who ably assisted him. Dave is an absolute expert on this subject, but he is also a man who seemed to have a tremendous knowledge of the whole natural world, having written several books, his most recent being on Nettles. Overall, he is a very interesting and knowledgeable character.

In his introduction Dave explained to us that he disapproved of foraging as fungi were an essential part of our environment and, indeed, without them the rest of the natural world would not be able to exist. Rather astoundingly he also advised that there were over 15000 different types of fungi in existence throughout the world.

Following his initial briefing he led the group on a four-hour saunter around Brown Moss, although much of his time was spent down on his knees searching in the undergrowth!

Despite it being late in the season he was finding specimens, of all shapes and sizes, many of the micro-ones being almost invisible to most of us, and amazingly he knew both the Latin and English names for all of those that he could identify on the spot. He identified about 85 different fungi on the day, and took several tinier specimens home to be examined under his microscope so the named total for the day now stands at over 100 which for most of us was mind-blowing, despite none of us ingesting any of the “magic” type.

I’m afraid that there were so many different fungi that I cannot remember most of their wonderful individual names now, but they included amethyst deceiver, inkcap, candle snuff, turkey tail, oysterling and horse’s hoof and their sizes varied from fairly large to absolutely miniscule. They were also growing in very different habitats from on healthy trees to dead wood, under leaves on the ground, and also out in the grassland areas. Interestingly some of them had very distinctive smells and tastes, although we were only allowed to nibble the occasional one.

If anyone is interested Dave, “Fungal Punk” has a full list of the fungi we discovered on his website, Fungal Sightings (fungalpunknature.co.uk), but I’m afraid he’s only used their Latin names on there.

Overall a fascinating and very well attended AWEG trip.