Walking through Keil's Den spotted a very good example of a bracket fungus. The individual caps were around 8-10inches. I find fungi difficult to identify and certainly wouldn't eat any that I found unless it had been identified as edible by an expert, however, I think this is Dryad's Saddle, so called because it looks like a seat for a dryad or wood-nymph.Keil's Den is at its best at the moment, covered in bluebells and with the recent rain the vegetation is now lush and green.
Dryad's Saddle - Polyporus squamosus
2 comments:
That's a fine looking specimen, The book I have here - The Oxford Book of Flowerless Plants says it tastes 'strong and unpleasant'. The book (pub.1966) also says it prefers to grow on elm trees so perhaps there is not so much of it about post-elm disease? It does look like a saddle - or the seat of an old tractor.
The woodland in Keil's Den is mixed and there were a lot of elms trees which have now fallen or been felled by the Woodland Trust but left in situ. This specimen was growing on a fallen tree trunk, so is quite possibly growing on the decaying wood of an elm tree.
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