September signals the grand opening of the fungi season, when woodlands, meadows, and even roadsides erupt with an astonishing variety of shapes, colours, and scents. Though fungi appear throughout the year, nothing compares to the sheer abundance of autumn fruiting. Britain boasts around 3,000 larger fungi, but the total rises to an incredible 14,000 when smaller species are counted. Esher Common, with over 3,000 species recorded, is one of the richest sites in the temperate world. Ancient woodlands like Epping Forest and Burnham Beeches offer dazzling displays, from inkcaps and boletes to sulphur tufts and earthballs. The mix of tree roots, rotting wood, and shifting weather produces ever-changing surprises. For those willing to explore, each September walk can reveal dozens, even hundreds, of these mysterious “fruits” of the fifth kingdom.
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Autumn Fungi
September sees the start of the main autumn fungi season. Although fungi have been seen every month of the year so far, little prepares us for the extraordinary display of hundreds of different shapes, scents and the range of colours that are all part of the annual fruiting of the fifth kingdom. It has been estimated there are in the region of three thousand different larger fungi and if smaller fungi are included this figure jumps to an inaccessible fourteen thousand.
The jewel in the London area is the relatively little known Esher common where over three thousand different species have been recorded, mainly due to the recorders who have concentrated on this area. Even so, this ranks as one of the best places to find fungi in the temperate world.
The best habitat to look for fungi this month is in woodland, with each type of wood having its own compliment of species. Mixed oak, beech, birch and conifer woods are the most productive as it is here that so many fungi have a mycorrhizal associations with the roots of the trees.
In other woods such as alder, ash, hornbeam, willow and poplar there are fewer yet still a small, unique set of fungi that form this mutually beneficial association. There are also other unexpected habitats rich in fungi e.g. old grassland, dung, boggy areas, roadsides, burnt ground, piles of woodchip and the enriched soil of cemeteries.
Fungi are notoriously erratic in their appearance. A personal rule of thumb is to count the number of new species seen in the first ten minutes of entering a wood. If it is ten or more it is worth continuing, but if it is only one or two it is probably worth moving to a new habitat.
In a good location twenty or more species ought to be encountered in the first five or ten minutes and with a small group of people perhaps upwards of one hundred species in an afternoon. In the Chilterns around Ashridge this has reached almost three hundred species on an all day foray, but in a bad year only a handful of specimens may be seen in the same place. The compaction of the soil in London’s woods is another factor reducing the number of species likely to be seen. Well trodden woods are far less rewarding than woods where the soil is soft underfoot.
The weather is another unfathomable guide. A hot summer followed by a wet autumn is said to produce the best autumn display and a prolonged period of drought produces the worst. However, all weather conditions seem to be conducive to one species or another, with many specimens growing on rotting wood in a dark corner of a wet wood seemingly immune to all weather variations. All these anomalies are typical of fungi and so visiting the best habitats regularly throughout the season till the first frosts of November usually results in an impressive and varied tally of many different species.
Certain fungi always seem to be the first to be noticed providing yet another announcement of autumn e.g. earthballs, blushers, grisettes, brown roll rims, sulphur tufts and deceivers as well as different brittle gills, inkcaps, boletes and agarics. Good places to start looking for autumn fungi are ancient woods such as Epping forest and Oxleas wood as well as Hampstead heath, Keston common, Burnham beeches and the pine woods around Oxshott.
