The Lyons Share

But fortunately for you and me, it's not on my body but it's on my list. I was Googling Nail Fungus to show it to a colleague and got a nasty surprise, hence the title of the post. It did make me laugh...at first, then it made me feel sick. Anyway, Nail Fungus is a rare species that grows out of horse dung and is known from Old Lodge. There wasn't much there but we did see three little patches, last year it was abundant but it has been very dry this autumn. I went on a fungal recording day today followed by a walk around the site to discuss grazing and management. Ray Tantrum lead the field trip and she was a wealth of knowledge. I added nine species to my list leaving me on 3658 species.

Species I didn't manage to get good shots of and that were new to me were: Poisonpie, Snowy Waxcap, Orange Mosscap, Pleated Inkcap and Yellow Fieldcap. The main reason for this is that mycologists have a frustratting skill of picking fungi for identification before I can get a chance to photograph them in situ!

This Russula was a new one for me being identifiable in the field by the exposed gills around the edge. It is known as Bare-toothed Brittlegill. I saw in Roger Phillips that it also has another name, the Flirt!

I then spotted two of these little guys, the rather infamous Liberty Cap but that was not a tick for me but I don't see them that often.

After a long walk around the site we bumped into the recording group again and Ray showed us another interesting fungus on a burn site. It's Pine Firefungus. I thought they looked like some kind of dessert, perhaps profiteroles or that stuff you poor on ice cream that solidifies into chocolate. Everyone else thought they just looked like dog muck. Now I'm looking at the photos I have to say that perhaps I was just hungry at the time.