This page was last updated on: Wednesday, 02-Nov-2011 12:30:08 GMT

Listen Now

Falling leaves, falling conkers, falling acorns, falling sweet chestnuts and falling apples- it is autumn in the forest.

Shells fall with a thump to the ground when the squirrel disturbs them.

A gust of wind shakes the tree tops and nuts fall thud, thud to the ground.

Occasionally we hear a different kind of thud with a heavy beat and a group of ponies rush past chased by a man on a horse.

Autumn is round-up time for the forest ponies.

Pigs scamper through the brown dying bracken chasing each other with loud almost continuous grunting looking for the fast disappearing acorns.

Ponies and donkeys approach us warily looking for food now that the campers are gone from the campsite.

All this action and we want peace and quiet to search for fungi in Matley Wood.

Searching for fungi is the easy part it is the identification that is the problem and we had particular difficulties this year because we did not have any professional help.

Finances precluded paying out for help so we had to do the identifications ourselves.

This does have the dubious advantage that we are more likely to remember if we have spent time working out the identification from a text book.

There are tens of thousands of different fungi so identification is not easy.

In the past people did not spend hours over a book trying to work out the name of the fungi but they did know how to identify two or three that were safe to eat and by sticking to these few varieties they managed to escape being ill or worse.

This was illustrated when we passed a couple of people carrying a trug of fungi all of the same variety.

The introduction of Latin names was an attempt to categorise and identify all types of plant but in the case of fungi a great many had to be re-categorised when DNA and microbiological analysis enabled better identification.

The English names of fungi are useful in that they describe characteristics that enable identification to be carried out.

A name like ‘Death Cap’, which we did not see, is an obvious example and ‘False Death Cap’, which we did see, although accurate still indicates that it might be best to leave alone.

Russules are similar in appearance to mushrooms but have a white stem and gills with caps of many different colours.

There are so many different ones that exact identification may be difficult but the English names of ‘Yellow Russule’ and the ‘Blackening Russule’ provide a good guide.

The ‘Fly Agaric’ is easy to identify not by its name but because it is the archetypal fungi of childrens books.

‘Tawny Grisette’ is another good English name which indicates that the colour is tawny brown and the grisette refers to striations around the top of the cap.

We discovered several of the ‘Brown Birch Bolete’ scattered about the wood and it is no surprise that they favour Birch trees, are brown in colour, and the bolete refers to the spongy mass in place of gills.

Earth balls were also common through the wood and are similar to puffballs but break up to release their spores rather than the single hole of the puffball.

Having spent some time looking at the ground with our heads down we started to look around at the trees.

Bracket fungi occur on dead or living wood up the trunk or branches of trees.

There were numerous fine examples of the ‘Birch Polypore’ with its white underside and pale brown upper but its smooth leathery surface gave every indication of its former use as a razor strop.

Another bracket fungus named ‘Artists fungus’ was seen on a dead tree trunk.

This gets its name from its ability to change colour when its lower surface is scratched.

At the base of one oak tree we came across several rosettes of a tongue like fungus with a pungent odour when cut that turned out to be ‘Grifola frondosa’.

This has many common names throughout the world including ‘Hen of the Woods’ and ‘Maitaki’ in Japan where it is revered for its ability to enhance the immune system.

Our visit to Matley Wood turned out to be an interesting one on what turned out to be one of the last warm sunny days of autumn.

Top of page

USER TOOLS: