“You’ve really got to see them,” he said excitedly as he came into the coffee morning. “They’re huge, bigger than dinner plates.” Veteran scouter Bill Edwards is in his mid-80s and walks everywhere. Over the year he uses many of the local footpaths and is a keen observer of the countryside. Last winter he spotted active honeycombs hanging from the branches of a bush alongside a stream. He noticed, too, a yellow brain fungus, growing on oak, whose lobes and folds were so expanded that from a distance it looked like a daffodil. This time he’d been using the path that links two parts of the town, along the line of the old railway with housing estates at each end. It runs along the perimeter of a school and it was there on the margins of the woodland that he’d seen them.
When we went to look for ourselves, we saw that Bill wasn’t exaggerating. This group stretched some metres along the fence-line. Our dinner plates at home measured 26cms; the largest fungus here was 34cms. Pale fawn on top with a felty, slightly scaly cap, these were the giant funnel Leucopaxillus giganteus, growing in a classic location. Older guides suggest that they can become a little larger, and there are references to very much more substantial specimens. The species is widespread but not common. Bill’s find is worthy of note; it’s good to have friends who use their eyes when out and about.
Grey skies have hung over us for days past, but there’s nothing uniform about a leaden sky. Stretched from horizon to horizon like a mottled blanket, the tones and shades keep shifting, as though the heavens cannot decide on the palette to be used. Artists can replicate what they see, mixing their colours with a sensitivity that’s hard to match in words. Battleship, dove, ash, gunmetal, teal, limestone, flint, steel, crag, pewter, charcoal, and 50 shades besides. All are there, and more.
