Showing posts with label Oudemansiella mucida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oudemansiella mucida. Show all posts

Friday, September 17, 2010

Slippery, even when not wet...

This is one of the easier toadstools to identify - porcelaiine fungus Oudsmansiella mucida. Conveniently, it's almost always found growing in only one place, on dying beech trees Fagus sylvatica, which narrows down the identification possibilities somewhat.




















The other defining characteristic is a permanently wet-look cap, covered in a layer of slippery mucilage that gives it the appearance of the finest quality porcelaine - for a day or two, anyway.
The young, developing toadstool produces so much mucilage that it sometimes drips off, as it's doing on the two lower specimens here. Photographed on a fallen beech tree near Blanchland in Northumberland, earlier this week...