Thursday's Guardian Country Diary describes a visit to Hamsterley Forest in Co. Durham on a foggy day.
The forest is a mixture of deciduous trees and conifers, with some fine beech plantations and some ancient oaks. Forests have a wonderfully mysterious, spooky quality when the sun begins to break through the fog.
In addition to the usual Scots pine and Sitka and Norway spruces there are some less familiar conifers, like this western hemlock. Its blunt resinous needles have an appealingly fruity, citrus-like aroma when you crush them.
Hamsterley is always a good destination for a fungal foray - this (I think) is the larch bolete Suillus grevillei and this ...
... is yellow stag'shorn Calocera viscosa.
This looks like Coriolus versicolor, not yet fully expanded. The brackets exude droplets of moisture underneath.
And finally, one toadstool that's unmistakeable - stinkhorn Phallus impudicus. These always appear in large numbers in early autumn in a Norway spruce plantation in the forest and if you happen to be approaching from downwind you become aware of their presence from some distance. This is a perfect specimen that must have grown up overnight ....
.... and here' one that's probably a day old. Flies have carried off all its sticky brown spores, leaving one late arrival with nothing to eat. Slugs have already made inroads into the remains.
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