Oxleas Wood is an ancient woodland just 25 minutes cycle ride away from Catford, so I don’t know why I haven’t been there before! I read that parts of it date back to the last ice age, 8000 years ago, so it should be good for those fungi which prefer a primeval habitat. However, I didn’t find any particularly unusual mushrooms on this occasion although I did see a rare tree species which Oxleas is known for – the Wild Service Tree.

There weren’t many larger mushrooms but lots of smaller Bonnets (Mycena). I recorded three but could have done several others. These three were Angels Bonnet, Common Bonnet, and Frosty Bonnet. I don’t get excited about the common small brownish Bonnet species but I haven’t recorded the pure white Frosty Bonnet before and it is quite attractive. Collybia aquosa is a Toughshank without a common name. (Should it be called Pale Toughshank?) I saw several Giant Funnels growing in pasture on the Hawkwood Estate last year so I was surprised to find one growing in a wood, but apparently this does happen. I haven’t recorded Firerug Inkcap before. It sometimes has a thing called an ozonium, which is a rug like structure on the growing surface, but I didn’t see one this time.

Yellow Fieldcap is striking in its yellowness and a mushroom I’ve not seen before. It’s surprising to find it here because I’ve read that Oxleas Meadow is managed like a traditional meadow to encourage wild meadow flowers. That involves cutting the grass to make hay and normally not fertilising the grass because the wild flowers compete more easily in less fertile soil (and some mushrooms prefer that too). However Yellow Fieldcap likes a rich habitat of rotting matter, grass cuttings, dung, etc. So why is it here, unless there have been animals grazing and therefore dung? I’ll be interested to see what else I find on another occasion. A proper unimproved (i.e. unfertilized) meadow should have several Waxcap species so I’ll be looking out for those.

I was last in Farningham Wood six years ago and it was good to return. I’ve had some great finds here in the past, including Horn of Plenty, Deathcap and Bay Bolete. On this visit, though, it seems that the fruiting of fungi hasn’t started in earnest yet. Or perhaps it’s going to be a lean year after the cornucopia of last! There were a few mushrooms to be found although wandering under the trees often resulted in nothing for twenty minutes or more.

First find was some Field Mushrooms growing on a small green on the way to the wood…, not really enough to gather for eating. The Weeping Widows were quite young and hadn’t yet started to deliquesce. Pholiota spumosa is a new species for me although the id is not certain. Coldfoot Bonnet is also new to me but these similar looking Bonnet (Mycena) mushrooms are always hard to tell apart so I’m not sure about the id. But Aurantiporus alborubescens is a great find, a rare fungus that I’ve read was first recorded in Britain in 1991 but is slowly spreading. Online there’s a confirmed record only 2 miles distant, so I’m convinced that this is right. Smoky Bracket is another new recording for me although it is very common. I might have often ignored it to focus on more exciting baubles but this was a very striking specimen. The Deceiver is also very common but very variable in appearance so hard to identify with certainty unless you look at the spores under a microscope – all the Deceivers (Laccaria) have round spiny spores.