Tag Archives: Crepidotus mollis

Fantastic Fungus Foray at Gunnersbury Triangle!

Alick Henrici telling a few of the GT group about Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria).
Boletus erythopus, a large brown mushroom and relative of the Cep, blue-staining when freshly cut. The colour is unprocessed , it really was that blue. Also called “Scarletina Bolete” and B. luridiformis.
All right, here you are. Amanita muscaria in all its glory

It was a beautifully sunny and warm late October day, and Alick was pessimistic. It had been far too dry for weeks and there would be very few fungi on the walk. But he admitted that children were very good at spotting mushrooms.

They were. We found 31 species,  more if you count the small Ascomycetes of the kinds whose fruiting bodies are little dots on rotting twigs.  Some indeed like the Fly Agaric and the Scarletina Bolete were large, colourful, and spectacular; others smaller and quieter, but often also beautiful, and all fascinating. None were stranger than Crepidotus mollis, the Peeling Oysterling, a bracket-shaped gill mushroom with a peeling cuticle, and an extraordinary jelly-like consistency revealed by gently stretching the cap, as shown in the photo.

Crepidotus mollis, a smooth thin cap with jelly-layer when stretched, found on path-edge log

Alick Henrici writes that he found four species new to the reserve during the Fungus Foray:

  1. Clitocybe phaeophthalma (aka C. hydrogramma); “nasty smell”
  2. Mycena crocata; “old specimen, unexpected but colours unmistakeable”
  3. Panellus stipticus; “a common late season species on wood”
  4. Pleurotus dryinus; “on Elder at post 6, not very common but often on this host”