fungi

You will need: 

• A mushroom fruiting body, preferably an older one. It can be any type of mushroom, but cap and stem mushrooms are easiest and work best.  - You can also use supermarket fungi! 

• Printer paper. Black or white will usually work some mushrooms have very light or dark spores so you may want to try on both.  

• A glass bowl or cup large enough to cover the mushroom.  

• A Ziploc bag for storage or some clear sticky back plastic. 

Many of us have likely walked by mushrooms in the past, maybe acknowledged them or had a quick look but probably never realised quite how complex and important the microscopic world of fungi is.  

If you have been walking in the countryside recently you will probably have noticed that many fungi are starting to appear now that we have entered autumn and the rain has started.  Identification of fungi can be problematic as, there are perhaps 6 times as many fungal species as there are flowering plants and the mushroom or toadstool we see is just the fruiting body of the fungus and is usually only short lived which doesn’t help.  However, some species are easily identified and a few of these are illustrated below, if you find any of these species

The fungi Volvariella bombycina was discovered in a lane in St Lawrence.