2021 may not have been a good year for humans but the mild and damp weather in the UK this autumn has been brilliant for fungi. Every chance I get I have been out in the local woods, awed by the tiny weird worlds that you can find if you are prepared to get down on your hands and knees and really look.
It does take some looking too. Walking on the path I often see nothing but then I dive into the undergrowth and find wonderful fungi. I am glad they pass mostly unoticed because all too often I see that ignorant people have knocked down mushrooms for the fun of it or with some misplaced idea that they are doing the world a favour.
Without fungi woodlands as we know it would not exist as there would be nothing to break the fallen leaves and branches down into soil. Some also live in complicated symbiotic relationships with other plants which would stuggle without them.
It would be ironic too if this stupid vandalism was to kill off a fungi that could cure cancer. That’s not hyperbole, there are indications that this one shrinks tumours.
Another thing I have noticed this year is how many fungi I have seen for the first time, that my book printed in the 1960s says are common. These unloved and overlooked organisms are increasingly rare and it would be so easy to loose them before we have begun to scratch the surface of understanding them.
For this reason I have decided not to harvest them for food (calories are cheap and easily come by, we don’t need these) and to even avoid turning them over to have a look at the spores for identification. If you want to look underneath, perhaps try a makeup mirror but please leave them alone because they need all the help they can get.
I hope you enjoy this selection of photographs taken around Sheffield this autumn.
Utterly cute but I don’t know what these are 
puffballs 
Fungi helping break down a fallen oak branch 
Amathyst Deceivers, edible inspite of their name 
Amanita Muscaria, everyone’s idea of a proper toadstool
Erica Madelin 