The Annual Cabinet of Natural History Fungus Hunt was held on 24 October 2005.
Report by Nick Jardine. Photographs by Francis Reid and Lisa Newble.
The fungi this autumn are spectacular. Just a week before the Fungus Hunt, Christina McLeish discovered in the King's Forest one of the rarest of all fungi, Squamanita paradoxa, only seen anywhere a handful of times before. It is a purple parasite, which bursts from the body of its host, Cystoderma amianthinum, like the Alien.
Twenty people associated with HPS came on the hunt. We were lucky with the weather – rain stopped as we arrived and started up again as we left. For several hours we explored Wangford Warren, near Lakenheath air base, and our walk was enlivened by a low-flying exercise of F15 fighters. The best of the edible finds was Macrolepiota procera (the parasol mushroom), in its rare variety fuliginosa. This is enormous and delicious. We also found the equally tasty True Cep (Boletus edulis) and the Pine Cep (Boletus badius). Several uncommon fungi were discovered, including two not previously recorded from the area. One of these, found by Shelley Innes, was Entoloma rhodocylix, a minute pink-spored specimen, growing on a rotting stump. The other, found by David Feller, was the greasy and rotten-smelling Tephrocybe baeospora, on a bank under a birch tree.
