Just a lone winter fungal sprouting in my garden. Could be any one of several dapperling species but Stinking Dapperling is quite likely as it’s very common and likes well composted gardens, although the colour is somewhat darker than the pictures in my books.

I feel guilty. I didn’t put this post up for 9 months!  But life gets in the way…

So I was walking down Deptford Church Street, heading off for lunch in Greenwich after splashing around in the Wavelengths pool. As ever, I was idly scanning the patches of park and garden as I passed by when something caught my eye, a short distance away over a wall in a communal garden beside a small block of flats. It looked rather like an Earthstar. No, it can’t be! I’ve been looking for Earthstars for years and never seen any, apart from the time when some Striate Earthstars were shown to me on an organised foray in Beckenham Place Park. So I carried on walking, but after ten yards further I just had to turn back and check them out, down a detour to the garden entrance on a side road.

And so I found a good number of Collared Earthstars growing underneath an ornamental cherry tree in this very unprepossessing site. My post title says they were in the Nature Park, which they weren’t really, but it’s a good location marker and the garden was right beside it. Took some pictures on Breda’s phone camera and Bob’s your uncle. Collared Earthstar is apparently the commonest type of Earthstar, but I can’t comment on that since I never find any of the blighters.