This is fly agaric, a mycorrhizal fungus, Amanita muscaria, which is found in the reserve every year despite our lack of its preferred partners: birch and pine trees. In classic pictures of this red and white fungus, those that don’t have an elf sitting on top are usually growing picturesquely in the moss under a birch tree.
Read on:
Clive Knight’s yearly search among the reserve’s fungi has turned up fly agaric, the classic spotted toadstool from our fairy tales. Here is a gallery of some of the pictures of Amanita muscaria we have been sent over the years.
Header image by Clive Knight
by Clive Knight
by Clive Knight
This is a sequence of pictures of a Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) taken every day from last Friday, the 22nd, up until today, Tuesday 26th. The last picture shows the fungus fully developed at approximately 17cm across, but collapsed. I have found that when they are fully open they do not last long so I am keeping my eye on some more in the reserve hopefully to take pictures of one fully open and still upright.
The header picture is the first in this series, taken by Clive Knight on Friday 22nd October.
This is fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) found, rather unusually, under a willow tree in the park; birch and pine are its preferred partners.
Read on:
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 