Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

The "wow factor" and a good home for Sulphur Tuft

"This is what I got into fungi for. This is the 'wow' factor - to come round the corner and there's a stump about five foot high and there's just hundreds of little yellow-brown mushrooms all over it." Patrick Crowley has brought us to a spot in the Oakwell Hall Country Park almost within spitting distance of the M62 where we can see hundreds of mushrooms growing happily together. Taking a closer look, we see that these 'mushrooms' come in all shapes and sizes. Patrick explains this is just one species of fungi, the Sulphur Tuft, but we are seeing them at different ages just around this one tree. He adds: "If you've got an old tree in your garden and chop one down, this is the kind of thing you can expect to see."

Pointing things out to visitors which they might not otherwise see is just one part of Patrick's job as Countryside Ranger and autumn is the best time of the year to hunt out mushrooms: "In the winter it's too cold and there's not much around so the organism in the ground isn't doing anything. In spring it's waking up. It's starting to expand but it hasn't taken on enough food to be able to build up the fruiting body which we call the mushroom or toadstool. In summer it's usually too dry and fungi normally have a very high water content. Sometimes it can be up to 80 or 95% so the time when the right things come together is the autumn. The fungi has been in the groundΜύand it's been able to feed. In the autumn the temperature drops a little bit so you get more moisture."

This morning Patrick is worried there might not be many fungi for us to see - he points out that you can't rely on one year being the same as the next. Despite being a very wet year, so far it's not been that good for mushrooms. However, there are thousands of species of fungi so hopefully we'll see a few along the way!

Fungi come in all shapes and sizes...

We haven't gone very far before we realise we have some very fixed ideas about what we tend to call mushrooms and toadstools. Patrick points out that the mildew we might be unlucky to find growing in our homes or the black spots on our roses are both forms of fungi and it's not long before we come across black spot on a few of the leaves hanging over our path. He says: "Not all fungi will have the classic stem and a cap. Some of them are like a jelly, some of them are like a coral." He freely admits to being "a bit of a snob" when it comes to fungi: "There are thousands of little brown ones which we usually call LBJs - Little Brown Jobs - and I'm afraid there's not enough time in my life to be learning the differences between them. It's the interesting ones, the unusual shapes, the colours that catch your eye. They are the ones that get me."

Patrick says people often mistakenly claim that mushrooms are edible and toadstools are poisonous, but in fact they are just two names for the same fruiting body. With mushrooms an incorrect identification can have various serious consequences so it's best to go hunting with an expert. He says: "Every year there are cases of people being poisoned. The one that causes most fatalities is the Death Cap. They say it's responsible for 95% of all deaths." There are dangers in relying on books for safe identification - no two pictures ever look the same and the mushrooms may well change their appearance. He tells us how the white dots, so characteristic of the Fly Agaric, will wash away in heavy rain and its red cap will turn orange or even yellow. Patrick warns: "Because there are so many that could be lethal you need to be careful."

The stuff of fairy tales? The Fly Agaric

But it's possible that in these Credit Crunch times we may be more eager than usual to go in search of 'food for free'. Fortunately Patrick says there are some fungi which are difficult to mistake and are good to eat, but it always pays to be very careful: "When I do a walk people say, 'Is it edible?' but I'm always cautious and say, 'the books will say so' or 'I've tried that'. And just like one person is allergic to peanuts and another is fine, the same thing can happen with fungi. It may be edible but it may give certain people an adverse reaction. There's a wonderful fungi that appears on decaying leaves, mainly in November or early December, before the hard frosts come. It's called the Wood Blewit. It has a really nice brown cap and it's purple underneath. It looks stunning but has a mild side effect - it gives you wind which is why it's called the Blewit but with some people it can irritate the stomach. It could give you the fright of your life if you have an adverse, allergic reaction to it. That's why I'm always cautious."

Patrick believes the best thing to do is to try and recognise those that are really good to eat and to learn which ones that are bad but it's very important to remember that colours can change. Even, if you are really really sure, it's still a good idea to put a bit of what you are eating to one side in case you have to seek medical help. And it's very important that you only take fresh, clean specimens. He points to a Shaggy Ink Cap which he says is "very nice" if it's picked when the cap is curved down and closed, and there's no sign of blackening: "When you open it up it has a salmon pink tinge, and that's when they are very good to eat." But just a few feet away is a much older Shaggy Ink Cap and at this stage the cap of the fungi curls round in a shape which has prompted the alternative name of Old Judge's or Lawyer's Wig. It doesn't look very tasty, it has to be said.

From youth to old age: the shaggy ink cap

Of course, with some fungi it helps to be there very early in the day. The Cep or Penny Bun is very popular in other European countries and there are a few at Oakwell. Patrick says: "It's the number one fungi to go for...People in the know will be up at the crack of dawn because they know how good these are."

It's not surprising that Patrick is often asked how he can possibly remember so much about fungi. He says getting to know fungi is just the same as with birds and flowers - you learn to recognise the family groups: "There's the Ink Cap family and one of the characteristics is that the cap starts dissolving and producing a kind of ink which in the past was actually collected and boiled up, and that's what people used for writing. There's another family - the Milk Cap - and if you get the cap and snap it, it oozes out a milky substance.Μύ You get to know what these family groups are so when you are presented with an unusual mushroom, you ask if it produces any milk? Is it grown in grass? Is it conical shaped? It could be a Wax Cap and you might not be able to say which Wax Cap but you learn the family groups and the keys to these. It's a step in the right direction."

But, of course, if you are on the hunt for fungi it helps to know where you are likely to find them. Patrick says: "It's just like picking an apple off a tree. The actual organism itself is still there on the ground, in the tree trunk or wherever it's living. If you go back at the right time of the year, there's a very good chance you'll see the same thing in the same place." Patrick has taken us to Nova Woods, an open birch woodland on the edge of the Country Park: "It's what covered West Yorkshire many many years ago, and it's where you've got the old trees with years and years of leaves falling down. It's that leaf litter, that organic matter that a lot of fungi are looking for."

Bracket fungus don't need stalks!

Patrick explains that while Oakwell Hall was built as long ago as 1583 the original trees were chopped down many years ago and as recently as 1947 some very old trees were chopped down to provide firewood during the very severe winter that hit the country that year. He says that a lot of fungi like the decaying wood and broken-off tree limbs found in old broad-leaved woodland, particularly beech and oak. But silver birch woods have their own fungi fans. One of these is the appropriately named Birch Polypore with its thousands of tiny little holes or pores. Another birch-loving fungi is the red and white Fly Agaric. And growing on a fallen oak trunk is another Polypore. Because its growth may stop or start when it's too cold or too wet, it displays a series of growth rings, which may be slightly different in colour, so it's come to be known as the Many-Zoned Polypore.

An elder tree plays host to a group of Oyster Mushrooms. This is a bracket mushroom - there's no stalk, it just grows out of the side of the tree. Some of the Oysters are very tiny but the biggest ones show signs of being nibbled at by slugs. Patrick says the Oyster is very nice if it's sliced and fried but obviously the slugs aren't quite so fussy.

But in the past it's not just the food or poisonous properties of fungi that have been talked about. If not quite the stuff of legend, they certainly have their place in old fairy tales. The red and white Fly Agaric even looks as though it belongs in a children's book. Patrick says: "There's so much superstition around them. How would this wonderful strange-looking thing appear that wasn't there yesterday? The fairies must have put it there." If you are really lucky you might even find a fairy ring in a field. This is a perfect circle of darker grass and if you take a closer look you should see the mushrooms. Patrick explains that the circle is caused by fungi releasing nutrients into the soil.

Dead Man's Finger!!!

Our stroll around Oakwell Country Park with Patrick has not only given us a much better idea of what to look out for on an autumn walk but it's left us marvelling at the 'common names' which have been given to some of these fungi over the centuries. Patrick says in some cases these names were just very obvious. He holds out a Dead Man's Finger: "Apparently,Μύif you were to find a body that has been dead for a long while, the fingers would blacken and be very similar to this." The Candle Snuff Fungus is also called the Stag's Horn - just choose the shape to suit you.Μύ But these names can be very important: "Basically it was worth learning the names because either they were good to eat or they would kill us."

Surprisingly, Patrick tells us he doesn't consider himself to be much of an expert as far as fungi are concerned. He just found himself photographing them and then started to learn their names, but he does say it's certainly helped the way he now looks at the countryside, even when the toadstools and mushrooms are not around: "You develop the eye for looking for the signature, for unusual looking things on the ground, and you start noticing a lot more. You start noticing the wildflowers, and other things in the woodlands and the parks and the fields that you wouldn't normally have noticed. You end up training your eye to look for things because so many of the fungi are so small. It's that subtle difference that catches your eye."