A beech wood in the spring with carpets of bluebells unfolding for as far as the eye can see. I’ve never found beech very good for mushrooms and I wandered around for an hour and only made one find, although that wasn’t a great surprise for the season. It was growing on a smallish fallen beech branch. I thought for a few days it was Polyporus Alveolaris and got very excited, as Roger Phillips says it’s “not recorded for Britain”, but after mulling it over I think it’s probably Tuberous Polypore. I got a microscope recently but haven’t had time to get up to speed on it with mushroom spores yet, so haven’t checked the spore characteristics.

Hurrah! Winter is done and spring is here. I don’t usually put much effort into mushroom foraging in spring but this year I’m keener than mustard. So I had a good look around in a prime location – a riding paddock strewn with wood and bark chippings. Two good habitat factors: dung and rotten wood. Found three different species, which is pretty good for a quiet month like May.