The Shroom Room

Fungi are such a diverse group of organisms that often it's difficult to believe what you're looking at is related to the mushrooms we use in the kitchen. I have stumbled across many a fungus that sparks this kind of reaction in me, one of which is King Alfred's Cakes , or Daldinia concentrica. They are extremely bizarre-looking, forming large black lumps on dead wood. Where there's one, there tends to be multiple. Their name is derived from the story of King Alfred, who allegedly hid in the house of a peasant woman whilst the Vikings were wreaking havoc. The woman asked Alfred to watch her cakes in the oven; however he was so distracted by his problems that he let them burn. And I suppose these fungi are what the cakes looked like in the end. Rather fitting, too, as they feel smooth, hard, and if you tap on them, they sound hollow inside. In fact, if you were to cut open one of these 'cakes', what you'd find inside is zones of shiny circles. Alth...

Bracket fungi are the most difficult to identify for me. I find they all look rather similar and I'm aiming to work on this in the future. There is one bracket, however, that I never fail to identify - the Turkeytail , or Trametes versicolor . These are probably one of - if not the - most common bracket fungi. I have found them everywhere: on stumps in front gardens, logs in woodland and wooden posts in town. If there is wood, there is probably Turkeytail. It has been disputed whether there are multiple species under the name 'Turkeytail', or whether they simply come in an array of colours. I read somewhere that 'true' Turkeytails are slightly hairy to the touch, whereas 'fake' Turkeytails are smooth, however elsewhere I have also read that the texture of Turkeytails depends on their age. Therefore, I'm going to leave the species debate to the mycologists and continue with the assumption that all colours come under the 'Turkeytail' brack...