Shrooms!

We often joke that this is the best area within the nature reserve for fungi. It is the top of an old covered reservoir in the Dancersend Waterworks area and not open to the public because it is still a working Thames Water site. The 'mushrooms' are ventilation structures. The closely grazed (by our Exmoor and New Forest ponies) turf sits on a concrete capping to the reservoir tank and is thus very low in nutrients, making it an ideal site for Chiltern Gentian and some seed heads can still be seen behind the 'mushroom' in the foreground.