wheres all my fungi gone

[Naturenutz]

It feels as if the fungi season is over already on my local patch,last month i found fungi everywhere,this month i have seen far less and have to put far more hours in to find anything .This is my first year searching for fungi and it has been great fun but i expected october to be peak time.When do you call your season over ?

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by Naturenutz

It feels as if the fungi season is over already on my local patch,last month i found fungi everywhere,this month i have seen far less and have to put far more hours in to find anything .This is my first year searching for fungi and it has been great fun but i expected october to be peak time.When do you call your season over ?

never - but then I don't just look at agarics (toadstools/mushrooms) . . . .

winter is the best time for pyrenomycetes and resupinate fungi . . . .

spring is boom time for discomycetes . . . .

summer is when the plant parasitic fungi come into their own . . . .

. . . . and you're back to autumn - I think that is why my natural history interests have ended up at mycology - no need to go further: it's all year round and there's much more chance to make a significant contribution than in, say, ornithology

you have to remember that the 'big stuff' is not the only stuff

and if you want to get to grips with agarics throughout the year - start looking at dung fungi

sadly all this is predicated on the jump into microscopy - but once you make that jump it's like going through a stargate - admittedly an often annoying and exasperating stargate

Chris

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

sadly all this is predicated on the jump into microscopy - but once you make that jump it's like going through a stargate - admittedly an often annoying and exasperating stargate

Chris

... a stargate with a time warp ... hours go past in trice

It may just be a lull in the fungi ... they are very weather dependent. And we are just moving from those that like warm wet conditions to those of cooler wet conditions. Hence lots of Collybia butyracea at the moment. Here there seems to be another flush of Amanita rubescens though, which have been round since July .. they seem to like it wet and warm, and wet and cool, in fact don't seem to fussy at all. And it seems we are just coming in to prime grassland fungi time. They have only recently got going.

Melanie