King Alfred was a terrible cook. In fact (but really in legend) while hiding from the Danes, he’d left a whole batch of cakes in the oven. They were suitably burnt and naturally ruined. So I can only guess he went to the woods and scattered them everywhere on dead ash trees to try and cover up his mistake and pass them off as some kind of fungus. Or something!

King Alfred’s Cakes (Daldinia concentrica) attach themselves on the dead wood of broad leaved trees, mainly ash and beech. It’s one of those distinctive fungi I see every almost every time I’m out in woodland. Although their season is summer to autumn, the older specimens linger on the wood for years and years.

Their appearance is literally that of some burnt cakes or even lumps of smooth charcoal. Older fruit bodies have a shiny surface, but younger developing fruit bodies are red/brown in colour with a duller surface. If you were to cut one open it would reveal silver/light and black concentrical zones (hence the ‘concentrica’ in the scientific name), very similar to the ring zones of a tree – or at least half a tree (due to their hemispherical shape).

Other ‘common’ names for this fungus are Coal Fungus (for obvious reasons) and Cramp Balls, because it used to be used in an old folk remedy for night cramps. I think I’d rather have the night cramps!

And as a great bush craft tip, these beauties are great for starting fires! The inner flesh of an old, dry specimen can be lit with a ‘firesteel’ flint for example (or even a magnifying glass). It will slowly smolder, much like your barbecue briquette and can be used to light your tinder.

But needless to say – much like burnt cakes – these fungi are not edible.

Sometimes the best finds are the ones you discover when you’re not actually looking for them. In addition, these mushrooms were only a few hundred yards from my home on a grass verge beneath an Oak tree.

It was near the end of May, there hadn’t been much rain and we’d had some strong sunshine for about a week. I say this because this Iodene Bolete (Boletus impolitus) mainly shows up in the Summer. Mind you, I suppose it is early summer. It isn’t really that common either. Its appearance is infrequent or rare.

It favours broad leaf trees, especially Oak, which in this case it preferred. There were several of them in a small group, standing out like sore thumbs. I had passed them earlier in the month, while out on my bike, as their caps were poking through the growing grass. I had only glanced over at them initially. To be honest they looked just like discarded old potatoes thrown on the verge, so I ignored them. How stupid did I feel realising later my mistake!? And who throws potatoes onto a grass verge anyway?

Iodine Bolete with olive-brown cracking cap

There is no staining on this mushroom when cut or bruised, which helped me identify it. Several books I looked at had shown the cap with no cracking on top exposing the yellow flesh within. But, to be fair, it was mentioned within the text.

The bugs absolutely loved these shrooms – they were all over them. So after I had flicked and shook them all off I took one for myself. Knowing this was an edible Bolete I thought I might give it a taste test (not expecting a taste sensation though!). But unfortunately after slicing in half, the base of the stem was already home to many small white maggots living it up in the mushy mess they had created. Oh well!

The council grass mower soon trundled across the verge, so I couldn’t grab myself another! Unfortunately.

Spring finally came, and that extreme winter we’ve just had just wouldn’t let go.

The natural contenders for ‘mushrooms I have to find’ were undoubtedly The Morel and the St.Georges Mushroom. But as yet – no luck on either, even after many outings. Grrrr!

But in the garden and out in force though like some giant family outing, were a selection of the smaller Ink Caps – Fairies Bonnets (or Fairy Inkcap or Trooping Crumble Cap) (Coprinus disseminatus). They come out in their dozens or hundreds even! Very common and quite pretty to look at on the whole. They mass mainly around old stumps of broad-leaved trees and spread to nearby soil.

The caps vary only slightly in colour, from a pale buff brown or clay grey-like colour. They are very fragile and the gills start off white then turn grey-brown and eventually turning black.

Fairies Bonnet is a very apt name for these little beauties

Nearby, milling around in the short grass, I find the Fairy Parasol (or Pelated Ink Cap) (Coprinus plicatilis). Again, these are small and fragile, but don’t group in a large troop like our Fairy Bonnet.

The pale brown caps are thin and ribbed (similar to the Fairy Bonnet) and quite unusually for an Ink Cap, the cap eventually flattens out and shrivels up. It does not dissolve into a black ink. You will see these in short grass in lots of places from spring to early winter. They also like to grow near woodland herbs.

The black coloured gills show that these are older specimens

And again we have another common Corpinus family member – The Glistening Ink Cap (Coprinus micaceus). Definitely the larger and most interesting in this little collective due to the young bell-shaped ochre coloured caps are dusted with glistening, mica-like particles or grains (fairy dust I call it, just to keep us in the fairy theme!). Older specimens slightly curl and split at the cap edge. The gills, common to the ink caps, age from pale buff to brown and eventually black before dissolving into an inky fluid. (That’s when the fairies cry!). The white stems are darker in colour at the base. These are great little mushrooms and one to look out for. They’re about for most of the year, usually in dense groups on broad leaved tree stumps or feeding off dead tree roots.

Shine on! These pics were taken by my dad after maiming them while trimming the grass!

And to sign off, I’ll note thate these mushrooms are all edible but the stone cold fact is that they are too insubstantial, bland in flavour and poor in texture. Hey ho!

Although tiny (0.5 – 1.0mm) the fruit bodies of the Coral Spot (Nectria cinnabarina) grow in their hundreds mainly on small dead twigs and branches (wood piles etc.). Even if you’re no mycophile, not many wood walking people can say they haven’t noticed these little critters blossoming just about everywhere throughout the year. And myself, as a fan of all thing fungal just had to know what they were. So now we know.

One mushroom guide I have noted that the ‘non-sexual’ form is the most common found, as in these pictures shown below. The ‘true’ sexual form is dark red/red-brown which has a bumpy surface and both forms usually grow together. We’re getting into the sexual side of things I know – and don’t ask me too much on this subject, I’m still getting my head round the other mysteries of mushrooms!

Anyway. Here’s the picture. You know you’ve seen them before, don’t you!? Note: This shot was taken in November 2009.

Look out for them in the woods anytime.

One last thought – I know Coral Spot is classed as inedible, mainly due to them being insubstantial (I believe). But imagine if you will, what if somebody took the time and collected thousands of them, just enough for a good portion – what would it really taste like? I’ve read elsewhere that it’s taste and odour have no distinction – but I think if you really had a munch on a big batch of the stuff, you might get a different result!

Well, maybe not! Just a thought.

Imagine how surprised I was at discovering the Dark-centred Hebeloma (Hebeloma mesophaeum) in the depths of winter, especially this one in January 2010. The Guardian newspaper on 6 Jan has successfully predicted the coldest UK winter in 30 years.

Well, in this case it was 4th January and snow was evenly spread across Leicestershire – Martinshaw Woods to be precise. These are great woods with such a mix of tree species. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of mushrooms but I did find plenty of ‘Jelly Ear’ and the above mentioned fungus.

The Dark-centred Hebeloma (Hebeloma mesophaeum) also known as the Pine Mesophaeum grows under conifers and broad leaved trees, but in this case it was conifers, and this may have been the reason it was around at this time of year. I’m only guessing at this, but because there is a certain large chunk in the woods that is just conifer (after freezing my nether regions throughout the rest of the woods) the temperature change walking through them was quite surreal. The heat had risen a good few degrees. No snow had penetrated the canopies above and it felt like you had just walked into another wood at a different time of the year! There seemed to be a very powerful closed-in, greenhouse effect in this part of the woods.

So I can only guess that these were perfect conditions for the Dark-centred Hebeloma (Hebeloma mesophaeum) and they must have been hanging on since late autumn. They were scattered everywhere – dozens and dozens of them. Some people might consider them quite dull in appearance but I quite like them, even though they are inedible and possibly poisonous (as are most related species).

The mushroom itself has a convex (and slimy) cap and most striking of all is the dark brown centre itself (hence the common name). Young specimens have a cobweb-like veil covering the sinuate gills. The stem is white and sometimes has a faint brown ring zone (remants from the veil). It also has another good identifiable characteristic in which it has a faint smell similar to a raddish!

Here is a shot I took of only a few scattered accross the pine floor