Start of Scottish mushroom season

Scotland has been warmer than usual, and much drier than usual, for most of this summer. Therefore, beach activities had to prevail over mushroom activities, and rock pool hunting over forest foraging.

So there were somewhat different kind of mushroom dominating my photos. Like this one:

Blue jellyfish!

Anyway, getting back to mushrooms, this Monday, 5th August, I did a sweep of the local forest, and while the quantity and variety of fungi was somewhat disappointing for this time of year, it was still a reasonable haul.

In the first hour of the trip though, no fungi could be found, and the scene was dominated by blackberries, which are ripening early this year.

A but further along a forest road, and there was the first find.

A largish cep, but, as discovered at home, rather maggoty, apart from its cap.

Several small ones followed in the next couple of hours, sometimes they were nice and firm, but mostly mouldy and maggot-ridden.

And then, suddenly, a clump of egghead mottlegills, sprouting from a pile of horse droppings.

These are, strangely enough, edible, although hardly worthwhile.

Finally, after 3+ hours wandering through pine, heath and mixed forest, there was this colourful specimen.

Boletus luridiformis. Firm and maggot free (as they normally are), and edible when cooked.

Final count:

If only all those were good, that would be a feast. As it was, with so much maggot damage, there was just enough to garnish a hearty beef stew.

Hope there'll be better luck next time!

Fungi in heat-stricken Europe

It just happens so that a couple of my family members are travelling to opposite parts of Europe, South West and North East, and of course they are sending me photos of mushrooms.

Despite the heatwave, I am delighted to see that there is still some fungal activity at both these extremes. Not surprisingly though, in both cases they are bracket fungi, which are less dependent on rain, because, well, we haven't had much of that recently.

Meet the Chicken of the Woods, Lithuanian Baltic coast.

As can be seen, when discovered it was still young and moist and, according to the reports, delicious.

Meanwhile, in Spain, there are these beauties:

Not entirely sure what they are - probably turkey tails, desiccated and bleached by sun. It was above 40 degrees Celsius that weekend!

So not surprisingly, the only other type of mushroom that survived these condition was this one.

Ahh, if only it was small enough to fit into luggage...

In Scotland, there were some fungi, too. But perhaps that's a topic for a separate post.