Adel Woods Fungal Foray

Sunday 10th November 2024

Leader: Andy Woodall

More than thirty of us gathered for a fungal foray at Adel Woods. Starting from Stairfoot Lane car park, we made our way downstream to the Slabbering Baby spring then on to the Seven Arches aqueduct.

Just beyond there we had our picnic lunch at a lovely clearing in the beech woodland where there are many rock and log seats. The weather was quite kind as the forecast had been for mist and rain. We had neither and at one point the sun even peeped out! Those of us that were out for the day then carried on downstream to the footbridge just before the ring road so we could return up the other side of Meanwood Beck to the aqueduct, the spring and finally a different path back (a very different path for some!.. though ‘not all who wander are lost’!)

The three lovely children in the group were excellent at finding fungi and bumped our list up to over fifty species. Agarics (aka mushrooms and toadstools) were literally thin on the ground. This perhaps was partly due to being towards the end of the main autumn season and partly environmental conditions. Some fungi need a cooler snap or a drier one to trigger fruiting and mycorrhizal species need a shock to their sugar supply. Leaf fall has been fairly late coming this year; perhaps the likes of some mycorrhizal species that have an intimate relationship with the tree roots have not been stressed enough to fruit. There were plenty of fungi on the trees though and we found many different bracket fungi and crusts. One of the highlights was finding three different sites for Chaga (Inonotus obliquus). This has become a popular health tonic but people often misidentify burrs on birch for it. Adel Woods is one of the few places in Yorkshire where I’ve found it.

Another good find was the true Artist’s Bracket, Ganoderma applanatum, which was on just one fallen tree, though we found many examples of its close relative Ganoderma adspersum (formerly G. australe). The true Artist’s Bracket often has the galls of the Flat-footed Fly (Agathomyia wankowiczii) looking like stalactites on the pore surface. Sure enough some of the brackets on the tree had the galls - the only insect gall on a British fungus.

Notable other species included the Wood Hedgehog (Hydnum repandum), the Oilslick Brittlegill (Russula ionochlora), Fairy Inkcap (Coprinellus disseminatus) and a large number of Meadow Waxcaps (Cuphophyllus pratensis) in a horse field adjacent to the woods.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day with plenty to see and talk about and lots of laughs in great company.

Text by Andy

Photographs by Tom