Greenham Common, Berkshire - 30/04/08

I departed the house and made my way to the car park. I found David and Chaka waiting on the path. We headed to the car and set off towards Berkshire to rendezvous with J.P.

After quite a drive and some pretty miserable skies, we arrived at Greenham Common and what a lovely place it was. David had been here before and of course J.P was on his home patch so he knew the area well, whereas It was all new to me. Considering that the skies were so dull, the place looked beautiful- it was the Gorse that really stuck out with its sunshine yellow flowers.

No more than 10 yards from the entrance and J.P smiling, pointed at a stump that we later decided might be Maple. On it was a lovely group of Coprinus specimens and the early development stage of the species David had wanted to see. It was no bigger than four inches and there were a couple of branching sections. It was Dryad's Saddle - Polyporus squamosus. David got straight in there, knees on the soaking grass, right angle viewfinder out, and snapping away at this lovely adolescent Polypore. Once he was satisfied with his shot, we set off walking across the common in the light rain, Chaka making a fuss of the cows that roamed the heath-land. As we progressed across the field, the Gorse started to get thicker. We started looking in and under it to see if we could spot anything, and sure enough after checking a couple of bushes, we spotted a tight cluster of St. George's - Calocybe gambosa. We'd been assured by John that we would almost certainly stumble across more of them on the common. As we wandered across the common, we noticed more St. George's popping up in rings both under Gorse and on the short grass. After quite a walk to cross the common, we reached an area of forest and entered via the path. Sure enough, I found more St. George's under a Bracken thicket and of course me being me, I tried to get at the nicest specimen which just so happened to be under a nasty section of the Bramble. Needless to say that the mushroom stayed exactly where it was, probably glad that it had popped up underneath such a deterrent. I left the area quite annoyed and trying to remove the thorn from under my thumbnail. I decided to get off of the path that we rejoined and go up into the birch woods to see what I could find. Everywhere I looked there were St. George's. I knew they were rather common in certain places, but there's no way I had seen them, nor heard of them appearing in such abundance. I decided that it would be silly to pass up on such an opportunity and so I got my tripod out of my bag, but not to put my camera on. I pulled the tripod out of my bag and disrespectfully tossed it aside and kept the bag in my hand. My knife came out of my pocket and those St. George's went in the tripod bag one by one. I was trying to stick to picking the button sized ones as they're much more firm and have a much tighter texture than the older ones, but I couldn't resist a couple of the larger, meaty ones. I popped the tripod bag in my rucksack with the opening towards the top so that I could easily access the designated mushroom storage space! I kept picking the small ones upon sight. After a while I realised that I'd become so excited an engrossed in picking these tasty little treats and I hadn't seen David or J.P for about ten minutes. I remembered J.P's legendary hi-visibility jacket and I popped my head up and looked out for the day-glo yellow to pop out from behind a tree, but nothing. It took me a further five minutes to find them both, and when I did, they were the ones hovering over another crop of good size Calocybe gambosa. We strolled on to re-join the path and spotted Coprinus micaceus growing at the foot of a tree. We headed into a very damp and sloped area of the woodland, and yet again I picked more St. George's for the pot later on. We sunk lower and lower into the forest and our feet sunk lower and lower into the squelching mud and water. We found a huge number of Jew's Ear on dead Elder and I picked a few choice specimens to add to my Mushroom filled tripod bag. After all, thinly sliced, they sit nicely in a Chinese style soup, not that I ever eat or make Chinese style soup. J.P scaled a hill and came towards us to tell us of his discovery of about a dozen Winter Polypore - Polyporus brumalis growing on Silver Birch. We walked around the edge of quite a steep hillside and John stood proudly next to a stump. As I neared, I could see the sulphur hue of the infamously bright Chicken Of The Woods - Laetiporus Sulphureus, which I had wanted to see with my own eyes for years. As I inspected the specimen, I could see that there was a completely bleached specimen of the same species, perhaps from earlier in the year, perhaps from last season. We carried on through the wood, coming to several very boggy areas. Not much was found in the wetter areas apart from an Unidentified small 'oysterling' type specimen that David found on a twig and the odd bout of Schizopora paradoxa. We arrived at another path, this time sticking to it as it led back to the common. As we emerged on the common, more St. George's were ready to pop up, and sure enough I couldn't resist picking some for the bag, so I did. The rain had definitely got heavier, but we were drenched anyway so we really weren't bothered about it. I have to say though, I did have a headache as we were walking against the wind as it was rather nippy with a wet forehead! We crossed the common back towards the car park, eyes firmly on the ground. All we seemed to see was St George's about to emerge, most of them in rings with a diameter of about six feet and most of the specimens no larger than a fifty pence piece. We came to a small area of scrub and saw some rather large cup fungus growing rather flat on the ground. David plucked one from the ground and discovered that these cups had a stem. This led to the conclusion that these were not Peziza sp. but Helvella sp. We reached the car park, had a quick drink and deposited our bags of mushrooms to relieve some of the weight for the latter part of the Greenham stint.

We crossed the road to join the woodland on the other side of the common and we can't have been in there for two minutes and myself and J.P were summoned by a rather shocked looking David. He was holding up a birch log that he had found. On it, was an orange, red and black hoof shaped fungus. We all knew exactly what we wanted it to be, and the choice words that were uttered by J.P at the time certainly summed up how much we thought it could be the extremely rare Fomitopsis pinicola. David photographed it a few times and placed it safely in a place where it didn't risk being damaged or defaced. After all, we needed to take a sample to send to various mycological bodies and resources! With that in mind, smiles broke out on our faces for the next few minutes, that was until we got too engrossed in the mass of Peziza on wood-chip that John had pointed out. As we headed into the wood, the Bluebells were getting thicker and the Ash were becoming much more frequent- this time we didn't hold much hope for any Morchella, but when you're constantly finding new species on the Spring, you realise how much you don't care about not being able to find Morels. It was up here that there were a some newly fruiting Willow Brackets - Phellinus igniarius amongst mature examples of the same species. Up the hill we walked through the trees until we reached a huge tree stump- of which species I am unsure, but I will find out. There was a single Deer Shield - Pluteus cervinus out in force amongst the fallen branches and as we circled around the tree in a clockwise direction, we checked on J.P's previously discovered Peziza sp. and Pluteus thomsonii to find them still intact. We joined another path and due to the side-sloping clay I nearly fell in the small creek that was running adjacent- I wouldn't have been amused. As we reached the top of the path, I saw another lump of Chicken Of The Woods growing on what I later discovered was a very large Cherry tree. As I stared at the lump of sulphur yellow fungus, David approached and was instructed by J.P to check out the other side. David's face was certainly a picture and as I wandered round to see what was there, I could certainly see why. I was a huge Sulphur Polypore, and that was just calling out to be photographed. There were the remnants of another specimen on the side of the tree that I had seen originally, so I pulled off a few bits to put in my pocket and pop in my bag when I got back to the car. After stripping the tree stump of the bright yellow flesh of the Sulphur Polypore, we continued to move up the hill on the path. I came across a small mushroom hiding amongst the cones and plucked it, with difficulty. Once I had uprooted it, we noticed how long and tough the stem was. It felt like straw or really dry and tough grass, so I in the spur of the moment suggested that it might be one of the Toughshank, which about twenty seconds later I dismissed due to remembering that it was the genus Collybia that owns the common name of Toughshank, and this wasn't a Collybia. It was only when we moved up the path and found another slightly larger one with a pine cone acting as a host, that we realised it was Strobilurus tenacellus. We headed back towards the suspected Fomitopsis pinicola to take the specimen for sending off for to RBG Kew and Michael Jordan as to grasp a definitive identification. We headed back across the road, reached the cars and sat down. J.P had told us that the location where he discovered his suspected Fomitopsis pinicola was roughly four miles down the road so off we followed John to the next location.