Branching Oyster Mushroom

The Branching Oyster, Pleurotus cornucopiae, used to be far more common. Now found mostly on dead or dying Beech trees, their preferential host was Elm, before Dutch Elm Disease wiped out more than 25 million trees in the UK. It grows frequently in groups and seasonally, from spring through to the autumn.

It wasn't an effort to photograph this clump from below as it was on a sawn off branch at about head height but they can grow considerably higher, often well out of reach or far closer to the ground. Their mycelium infect the dying tree itself and they won't be found on the ground.

Nearby, there was a massive crop of Oyster mushrooms, Pleurotus ostreatus, on a fallen tree, but as is often the case at the side of a car park, someone had spent some time battering the fungi to a pulp. The Oyster is not seasonal like it's relation and can be found all year round, however, this is it's most productive time of year. Shame, they would have been an excellent blip.

Both species are edible, easily recognisable and said to taste a little like their marine namesakes, although personally I think it is more the texture than the flavour that give them the name.

They are one of the easiest fungi to cultivate, they will even grow on damp toilet tissue, but more appropriately you can buy logs that have been drilled and filled with bungs of infected with the mycelium. Keep them damp and you should have a good crop. There again, I see them ever more frequently, on the shelves of supermarkets and farms shops!