Fungi

I've been neglectful of fungi over the years. Sometimes  I make the effort to try and identify them and other times I pass them by without a second thought. This year seems to be a good one and I've found several locally to us and in the garden which I've taken the time to try and identify. There are so many it's really quite difficult to remember any but the commoner ones.

Candle Snuff  - so called because as it gets older it has black bases and looks like a candle wick that has been snuffed out. See below: 

King Alfreds Cakes o na dead ash stump - said to resemble King Alfreds burnt offerings. 

Shaggy Inkcap.

Sulphur Tuft.

Fungi come in all kinds of guises and some are parasitic on insects. I found this dead pollenia fly (thanks Gavin) in the garden that I didn't recognise. It was striking with black and white zebra bands. Googling black and white striped flies and found out it was a kind of fungus, probably Entomophthora muscae, that infects the fly and then kills it as the fruiting bodies burst through the thorax resulting in the dramatic black and white banding.

It just shows - you're never too old to stop learning!