Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Common Puffball, Lycoperdon perlatum, is edible when young, as in the one above, growing on grassland near trees on the south bank of Skelton Lake. The pyramidal warts fall away as the puffball changes colour from white to ochre brown, leaving a faint net-like pattern.
These two were growing within a few feet of each other with a third nearby.
The fibrous scales on this small mushroom resemble those of the Blushing Wood Mushroom, Agaricus silvaticus, a common species that some writers say is good to eat, but there are similar-looking species that aren’t, so I won’t be giving it a try.
The alder is the nearest that we get to mangroves as it produces adventitious roots above ground which enable it to grow in very wet ground, even at the water’s edge. These female woody ‘cones’ are ripening and will attract seed-eating birds such as redpolls and siskins.