April's Hidden Kingdom: When Fungi and Mosses Rule
While flowers steal the spotlight, April's true alchemists work in shadow. The formidable St. George’s mushroom emerges like clockwork on the 23rd—but confuse it with its poisonous doppelgänger and you’ll face a deadly game of fungal roulette. Meanwhile, morels tempt foragers with their honeycombed caps, hiding lethal lookalikes that strike hours after the last bite.
Venture deeper and discover mosses that glitter like emerald fur, liverworts masquerading as snakeskin, and a "brain fungus" pulsating on ash trees. Why does Box Hill’s chalky soil birth such bizarre bryophytes? And what dark symbiosis links those sinister chalice fungi to dying wood anemones?
Return on 28 April to explore London’s most dangerous delicacies and miniature jungles—where survival hinges on spotting the difference between feast and fatal.
Article
Fungi
April is not really a month for large fungi, except for one or two notable exceptions, the most obvious being St George’s mushroom Calocybe gambosa. It is so-called due to its appearing around St George’s day, 23rd April. Generally it goes on into May and is seen more often if the spring is warmer than usual. Although fond of chalky grassland slopes, it can also be found in woodlands, hedgerows and even cemeteries. It tends to be noticed more as other large fungi are not common in the spring. Being a big, solid-looking, biscuit or ivory coloured mushroom it doesn’t look unlike a large heavy specimen of a cultivated mushroom. It usually smells of ground flour, but sometimes of cucumber and although famous for its edibility, has a strong, mealy flavour that is not to everyone’s taste. Sometimes it is found in large rings. Ten pounds of it was collected from such a ring at Keston and another old record from Putney Heath suggested in the region of fifty pounds. Unfortunately, as ever, there is a poisonous species with which it can be confused, although this one fortunately tends to appear in the autumn rather than the spring. This is the red-staining Inocybe Inocybe patouillardii. It differs in that it usually has a split cap and turns a strong red when bruised. Rather than meal, this species smells of rotten fruit. It is young specimens and over zealous pickers that present the main problem; and an unfortunate mistake between these two could result in asphyxiation, heart attack and death.
The most famous edible spring fungus is the morel Morchella esculenta. Like St George’s mushroom, it is found on dry, chalky soils under elm and ash and tends to appear, like many other mushrooms, after rain. It also turns up in gardens and even window boxes. Once again, there is another similar poisonous species to be avoided. This is the false morel Gyromitra esculenta, which unfortunately also fruits in the spring. The false morel elicits no symptoms for the first ten hours, after which you fall into a coma and die.
Other fungi seen this month are mainly old, decaying bracket fungi, although some such as Dryad’s saddle Polyporus squamosus are starting to produce their new fruiting bodies. Occasionally, bright scarlet cups of Sarcosphaera coronaria may be found. More unusual fungi include another morel Verpa conica, which can be found on Deptford Heath and Sepultaria sumneriana which looks like a discarded husk of a sweet chestnut, but is occasionally found underneath cedar trees. Other species regularly recorded include Paneolus fimicola and Enteloma sericeum on lawns, Paneolus acuminatus, Disciotis venosa and Boletus vitellinus in grassy areas, Tubaria conspersa on woody debris, Coprinus micaceus on dead wood and C. congregatus on compost.
In wet Aprils, the jelly fungi also do well with jew’s ear fungus Auricularia auricula-judae seen on elder and the brain fungus Tremella mesenterica often seen on ash. Perhaps most striking of all are the chalice shaped fungi Sclerotinia tuberosa which are found around small groups of ill-looking wood anemones on whose tubers they grow.
Mosses
April is a good time to look for more unusual mosses and liverworts, especially after April showers and before they all dry up in the summer heat. There are well over one hundred different species in the Box Hill area with a number of less common types of moss associated with calcareous grassland. A good place to start is the slightly damper microclimate at the base of the famous south-facing cliff on the path beside the River Mole. Here you may find interesting feather mosses such as the Golden feather moss Campyliadelphus chrysophyllus, the Yellow feather moss Camptothecium lutescens, the Foxtail feather moss Thamnion alopecuran and very fine-leaves Tender feather moss Rhynchostegiella tenella. Others to look out for include the Beech feather moss Cirriphyllum crassinervium on the roots of trees, a Pouncewort Fissidons minutulus easily missed on small pieces of chalk and the English Rock-bristle Seligeria calycina which shows a preference for small stones.
Ascending the hill on the chalky slopes over towards the Zig Zag path there are Beardless mosses Weissia spp. recorded as well as a Pottia (P. recta), a Notchwort (Leicolea turbinate) a Cylinder moss (Entodon artocarpus) and the very attractive Prickly tamarisk moss Abietinella abietina var. histricosa which even seems to thrive when not even attached to the ground. Other bryophytes to look out for ascending the hill over towards Juniper Top are more attractive mosses such as Philbert’s Tamarisk moss Thuidium assimile and the Glittering Wood moss Hylocomium splendons, The Comb moss Ctenidium molluscum which can look like combed animal fur, as well as a Neckera (N. crispa) and a Scalewort (Frullania tamarisci) can also be found.
The top of the Box Hill plateau is dissected by a number of different relatively remote valleys e.g. Happy Valley and Ashurst Valley. These provide a number of even more unusual habitats which certain mosses and liverworts seem to show a preference for e.g. bare soil and chalk, scrub on stony ground, the surface of flints and yew logs. New types of moss to look out for here are an Aloe moss e.g. Aloina diodes, a Tail moss e.g. Anomodon virtulosus, a Flapwort e.g. Odontoschisma denudantum, a Scalewort Porella platyphylla as well as an Extinguisher moss Encalypta vulgaris. The latter produces fruiting bodies that look less like extinguishers and more like dunces caps.
