Country diary: A desperate feast on a rotting fungus

The Marches, Shropshire: As the heatwave passes, we seem to be left with decline and decompositionThey are darklings, leathern, nocturnal, folding into themselves, sludging towards corruption. They smell – not foul, but strongly of something overripe, a declining libertine, yeasty and gloriously soiled.These penny buns, the colour of old pennies, are the fruiting bodies ofBoletus edulis, a bolete mushroom that appeared in the last days of the heatwave, growing along the edge of an avenue of lime trees in Oswestry ’s Brogyntyn Park.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Fungi Environment Rural affairs UK news Plants Biology Science Source Type: news