Yellow Fieldcap

I went off to Studio One to collect the banners for this weekends' exhibition - they looked wonderful and K and I are so grateful to Daral for providing them at no cost. 

As the sun was shining I decided to fit in an early walk before settling in to more exhibition preparations. I'd intended to visit Rice Wood again, to see how the Wrinkled Peach fungi were doing, but the road was blocked by three large lorries being loaded with Sugar-beet, so I did a five-point turn and parked up close to Castor Hanglands.

I always feel that the grassland of this reserve should be full of waxcaps and other grassland fungi - but it never quite lives up to my expectations. I found some Silky Pinkgills, a few Snowy Waxcaps, a group of Yellow Stainers and a single Ringed Milk-cap, as well as many small brown toadstools that I didn't try to identify. 

My selected image is a Yellow Fieldcap, a very common grassland species which is one of the shortest-lived of all mushrooms. It goes from a yellow 'egg on a stick' via a pinkish parasol stage to a mid-to-dark brown or, in hot dry weather, light ochre mushroom in less than a day. I think that its Latin name, Bolbitius titubans is much more satisfying than the rather prosaic Englaish name!