Veined Shield

A beautiful autumn day which started with a dental appointment. Fortunately all was good! I returned home for a bracing cup of coffee and then headed out to see if I could buy trousers for Pete and me to wear at the wedding - success on both accounts, so now I just have shoes and a bag to sort out! Fortunately, everything I've bought will be very wearable after the event.

In the afternoon Pete and I went for a walk round Castor Hanglands NNR, in preparation for a management planning meeting that's coming up in a couple of weeks. Much of the site was very dry, and all the groundwater-fed ponds were empty. As a result fungi were a little sparse, though we found a number of interesting species including this Veined Shield which is quite a rare species , largely restricted to southern England. 

It's an easy to identify species with the distinctive cap that looks like someone has used a glue gun on it, with raised pale 'veins' that make this species quite unique. It is found on rotting wood in deciduous woods, usually preferring Beech or Ash. 

We also found a Willow Shield on a rotting Goat Willow trunk - I've added its spore-print in extras, showing the characteristic pinkish-brown colouration of its spores.