The 5th Kingdom - fungi photography

Some observations on the travails of photographing the fruiting bodies of the 5th kingdom.

Habitat and timing

Mixed broadleaf woodland and deadwood - managed for habitat

To illustrate the difficulty in finding fungi, a prime case of disappointment, was a visit made to a woodland classified as ancient semi natural, with an underlying geology ranging from limestone, mudstone and sandstone and a flora indicative of ancient woodland, with ancient coppice stools and veteran trees. I had high hopes for a rich, diverse assemblage of macrofungi, even allowing for my 'mushroom blindness', the reality was a fungi desert on that visit.

Mixed broadleaf woodland - managed for habitat

Lessons learnt

• Some tree species have poor assemblages of fruiting fungi.
• Locations need to be repeatedly revisited.
• Fruiting fungi are apparently capricious in nature, some years are of plenty, other years not so good.
• For reasons that I have no idea about, some patches of a wood are hotspots for a number of different Fungi, whilst adjacent areas are barren. 
• Walking speeds need to be modified to a very leisured pace to spot fungi.

Photogenic specimens

Remains of a Fungi feast 

Finding pristine fungus specimens is something of a lottery. Fungi appear to be a desirable food resource for a surprisingly diverse range of woodland wildlife and then there are fungi foragers and commercial pickers.

A slug grazing the base of a Stinkhorn

Stinkhorns are particularly afflicted by slugs eating away the stem and causing them to droop.

Jelly Fungi ~ Leafy Brain Fungus and Brown Brain Fungus

Mushrooms are more vivid after rain then during dry spells. Leafy Brain Fungus, is an unremarkable dark shrivelled colour when it dries out, whilst after rainfall, the colour changes to a vivid red wine colour.

Identification of the fungi species

A troop of Amethyst Deceivers

For the casual observer some fungi are distinctive enough to leave no doubt as to what they are, sadly there are a great many other fungi that are more challenging to identify.  It is up to an individual to draw their own line where curiosity descends into more committed investigation.

Tawny Grisette (Amanita fulva)

Consider Amanita fungi, sufficiently large (macrofungi), to be visually conspicuous and as the family includes some lethally poisonous fungi, there are plenty of descriptions. The two Fungi guides I own, describe 29 and 19 species, the Dean Fungus Group have a record of 35 Amanita species and the British Mycological Society, more again. A useful website for identifying or confirming a species is www.ispotnature.org.
In a future post I'll describe a foray in an Ancient Caledonian Pinewood.

A solitary white fungus, in mature beech and oak woodland. I am fairly confident this is a Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa) due to the nature of the volva, stem texture, veil, gills and cap.