Wrinkled Peach

At this time of the year the Celts believed the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead dissolved, a feeling I could understand on my walk round Raveley Wood, an elm wood perched right on the edge of the fens.


The scent of decay was all around, fallen elm logs lying abandoned on the rich loam sprouting forests of fungi, with troops of wood mushrooms emerging from the soil itself. Small white slime moulds beaded some of the more well-rotted trunks which also provided a home for small groups of eyelash fungi (see extra). So much death, giving rise to so much life. 


As I peered into dark and fusty corners, I was aware of the mewing of buzzards overhead, now thriving in this intensively farmed corner of eastern England. Nuthatches were busy on the standing dead elm, and at one point a huge family of long-tailed tits, more quaintly known as bumbarrels, passed through, followed by a small posse of blue tits and a single goldcrest.


But for me, the highlight of my visit was finding many fruiting bodies of the Wrinkled Peach, a soft peachy-pink fungus which looks rather like a wrinkled testicle when it first emerges from the dark well-rotted elm trunks (see extra), but soon expands to an elegant parasol with neatly forked gills. It's generally quite a scarce species, but is commoner in Cambridgeshire than in many other parts of England, because of the continued abundance of elm. Like many other fungi it's having a very good year.


Ben's also having a pretty good year. After a slightly nerve-wracking interview on Tuesday, he heard today that he's been offered a part time job in Waitrose, which will give him some welcome cash and work experience, while he finishes his OU maths degree. As usual, we celebrated with a family meal. And somehow I seem to have reached 3000 blips - after wavering about whether to continue blipping, I renewed my subscription today, so will now press slowly onward - I might as well try to get to  5000 now!