Ready to ride!

I've blipped this Dryad's saddle (aka Pheasant Back) fungus several times before. Its fruiting body  appears every year on one of the ash trees along our access lane. The host tree has, like the others, been stricken with ash dieback disease  and has recently been 'monolithed' (branches removed and  just the main trunk left). I imagine there will still be enough nourishment in the wood for the fungal mycelium to feed on for a while yet but the future for this species looks bleak when the old ash tree timber is finally exhausted.

I'll be cooking with some of this later. When young the flesh is tender and delicately flavoured - often said to smell of cucumber or watermelon.
Some cooking advice here.

Also of fungal interest is the extra. As we followed the balloon markers  to yesterday's party in the sand dunes through the tangle of low-growing, wild burnet rose briars that cover the hummocks and hollows,  it seemed that someone had marked the way with a fluorescent spray here and there. In fact it was flowers, fruit and leaves affected by Phragmidium rosae-pimpinellifoliae,  a vivid orange rust  fungus specific to the burnet rose and its relatives.