Porcelain mushrooms

A damp and chilly day after a wild night, the ground soggy and muddy - typical November weather. A compensation for the mycophile however is that this month can still provide fungal delights. Out of the half dozen different species I came across in the woods this afternoon this one was the least familiar.

It's called Oudesmansiella mucida, the porcelain fungus (owing to it almost luminous whiteness), or the poached egg fungus, because its shiny cap, just visible here, looks like cooked albumen.

Parasitic on beech trees, it cunningly possesses its own fungicide which deters rival species from encroaching upon its personal space. The discovery of this substance has been used to produce an agricultural pesticide called azoxystrobin which has made millions for some pharmaceutical company.

Professor Oudemans, who seems to have supplied the generic name, was the leading Dutch mycologist of the 19th century. I have a feeling he was fond of poached eggs.