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Department of History and Philosophy of Science

 

Nick Jardine reports on the 2010 Cabinet of Natural History Fungus Hunt, which was held on 25 October.

This was the 22nd of our annual fungus hunts. Eighteen of us visited Bradfield Woods and explored them from end to end. Sadly, Tamara could not be with us; and many fungi, especially in the more open spaces, had been got by frost. But there were excellent finds among the survivors. To start with, we found a reasonable number of good edible ones: lots of the large Trooping Funnel, Clitocybe geotropa; plenty of Wood Blewits, Lepista nuda (which contains an anti-freeze and flourishes after the first frosts); and a handful of lovely almond-scented Wood Mushrooms, Agaricus silvicola. Gi Lloyd found the beautiful Silver Webcap, Cortinarius alboviolaceus and Frances Willmoth the rare Clustered Brittlestem, Psathyrella multipedata (also seen on the very first Annual Hunt in 1989). Most exciting of all, at least to me, were some of the tiny ones ferreted out by the lynx-eyed Marchamont Kassell. These cost me many midnight hours of microscopy. One, growing under Alder seems to be the rare Cortinarius scandens. Another, growing under Willow, is definitely the even rarer Inocybe squarrosa. Both are new records for Bradfield Woods, and may well be new records for the region.

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