Papery seed capsules are the only sign of the bluebells which carpeted this woodland floor in the spring. Now, in the humid aftermath of torrential rain, among deep green shadows and sun flecks flickering through the tree-leaf canopy, new life is erupting from fallen branches and humus: the toadstool season has begun early this year.
The outer ranks of a troop of several hundred fairy inkcaps, Coprinellus disseminatus, encircling a coppiced hazel stool, are already deliquescing into gooey black spore-laden ink that will soon be carried away on the feet of beetles and flies.
Purple jellydiscs, Ascocoryne sarcoides, the colour and consistency of wine gums, cluster on the rotting end of a fallen tree trunk. A brittlegill toadstool, Russula atropurpurea, its maroon cap already nibbled by slugs, has toppled over in the short grass beside the footpath.
The wonder is that none of these were here when we passed by a week ago, when they were just stealthy mycelia, bundles of microscopic hyphae which ramified through soil and rotting wood digesting everything organic along the way. They have finished feeding now and are committed to the construction of exquisite pieces of fungal architecture for the dispersal of spores.
None are more impressive than the tiers of oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus, sprouting from a fallen beech tree. Peering under their caps we see the slender, curved gills, appearing like fine porcelain. They rise like cathedral roof fan-vaulting, illuminated by weak sunlight filtering through their translucent caps.
Minute springtails and rove beetles busy themselves in the aisles under the soaring arches of this clammy fungal metropolis. We find ourselves conversing in lowered voices; for a moment we have lost our sense of scale and are among them.
Perhaps hushed whispers are appropriate, for this fungus is a carnivore. With its hyphae, which secrete a narcotic that paralyses nematode worms, which abound in wood rotted by its enzymes, it first creates a habitat for these creatures, then renders them helpless, unable to resist invasion and digestion. The oyster mushroom’s architectural elegance is nourished by the worms’ bodies.
