Showing posts with label Fungi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fungi. Show all posts

Sulphur-Tufts

Two more photographs from my recent walk through Gelli-Hir Woods, Three Crosses, Gower. When the weather is pretty dire, mushrooms always makes a woodland photogenic. In this particular instance, it's Sulphur-Tuft that add a definite magical vibe to the woodland:



An Early Christmas Grotto

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Despite the gloomy weather, Stella and I forced ourselves out of the house today for our weekend exercise. After half hour's drive into the countryside, we parked up at the top of a pine woodland, where, within minutes of leaving the car, we were both overjoyed that we had mustered the needed willpower to leave the house.  

Walking down the woodland path, something bright caught our eyes from a small hollow in a bank below a pine tree. We had to step into a small ditch to get in closer to our find, but we were well and truly rewarded for the slight inconvenience. For, parting its curtain of pine branches, we found ourselves peering into a little magical Christmas grotto, festooned with the most glorious Amanita muscaria mushrooms I have ever seen!

"What have we here then?"






Seeing these bejewelled beauties through the canopy of pine needles reminded me of an old article I wrote on the tradition of decorating Christmas trees with imitation Amanita muscaria mushrooms. Upon our return home, I dug out the old manuscript of this article. Written many moons ago, the thing needs a good, solid polish, but I can announce that my next project will be to publish my short illustrated essay - Santa was a Shaman! 

I do love they way nature walks inspire and get the creative juice flowing :)


Mynydd Y Betws Wind Farm

Sunday, October 17, 2021

















Butter Fingers - Twmbwrla

Sometime I prefer the nicknames I give to certain fungi, rather than their official names. Take the following fungi, for example - Calocera viscosa aka the Yellow Stagshorm, photographed in Twmbwrla. Butter fingers is surely a more apt title for these rather lovely woodland life forms.



Amethyst Deceiver (Laccaria amethystina)

Have you ever seen a fungus like this before? It's so purple! Amethyst Deceiver (Laccaria amethystina), Twmbarlwm: