Veteran Tree and Fungi Walk

Having had my interest in fungi piqued by this Roger Phillips foray I booked my wife and I in on a Herts and Middx Wildlife Trust Veteran Tree and Fungi Walk held at Panshanger Park. 
As it was an organised event we met away from the usual car park and then got underway with Alan, David and Laura.

We had a cold but gloriously bright morning for it and started near where there stood a beautiful country house and orangery overlooking the lake. My wife and I often walk around the area but we usually walk near the lake so the walk headed into a  part that we don't often frequent

We stopped and looked at lots of trees and fungi so I've picked out a few notables. This unusual Sycamore appears to be growing out of an old dead stump, perhaps a windblown seed? 

 This Beech loving fungi is Brittle Cinder (Kretzschmaria deusta) and Alan explained that this causes spalting through the wood which makes for attractive carved objects, similar to this lovely spalted firewood project that I've recently finished albeit with Birch.

We stopped to measure this Sweet Chestnut's girth which came out at 5.23 metres which is apparently a decent measurement in veteran terms.

 

In between the tree observation we did find several mushrooms, maybe a  Frosty Funnel (Clitocybe phyllophila) at the top, a Russula in the middle and an Amanita below?

This mighty Pendunculate Oak was a sight to see, even though the tip was missing due to a lightning  strike. It's age is estimated to be between 450-500 years (to put that in context it probably would have germinated during Henry VIII's reign). It's girth was 7. 94 metres which puts it in the upper echelons of veteran trees.

 We spent a bit of time in this wooded area and got  given information about how trees adapt to old age and their environments, for instance the three parts to an Oak's life cycle. The picture (above left) shows a tree that has developed 'ramshorns' as it attempts to grow over a wound. 

 As we emerged from the wooded part of our walk we entered an area that my wife and I were more familiar with, or so I thought. As impressive as the mighty Oak was I was taken by the presence of two stands of young English Elms (decimated across the country by Dutch Elm disease) with the mother tree that they probably suckered from. I'd not noticed them before and when we were asked what variety it was I was reticent to say.

 Mistletoe features prominently in the park but I noticed a small but perfectly formed specimen at head height, perfect for a quick peck on the cheek. Nearby was a naturally occurring Lime, as opposed to a planted one. The Lime was the sixteenth indigenous tree variety I saw, I say indigenous because the area around the house was landscaped and as an example there are non-natives such as a small stand of False Acacias nearby.

And some more cheeky specimens, maybe Milking Bonnet (Mycena galopus) at the top,  and possibly another Bonnet of some sort (growing on the measured Sweet Chestnut) in the middle? And Turkey Tails (Trametes versicolor) at the bottom? 

 Now by the lake edge we saw some pollarded (and then subsequently neglected) Oaks and a branch that a tree has deemed worthy of dropping, and did! We also saw several Ring-necked Parakeets which are being seen more and more in our area.

 

One particular example had grown round a lot of barbed wire  with possibly common inkcap mushrooms below. Even though the trees had been pollarded they were still impressive and apparently it prevents trees from ageing as quickly as a maiden (untouched) tree.

 

Here we have a good example of an Oak healing over the spot were a branch was removed but the tree is also showing signs of acute oak decline, a disease of more mature trees.

 

 And my wife was pleased to spot an example of a Beech tree's 'ramshorn' repair of a wound, which was later confirmed in a talk about this stand which also included a monolith tree which is basically just the trunk which is left to benefit nature. We also saw a good example a little distance away of brown rot which produces punky wood, often used to smoke hides with.

 

I spotted these parasol mushrooms which turned out to be Shaggy Parasols (Macrolepoita rhacodes). Jane, one of the course attendees, helped out with the ID saying that they have white stems as opposed to Parasols (Macrolepiota procera) which have scaley stems.

 

 We chanced upon a decent sized Artists Bracket Fungus (Ganoderma applanatum) which often favours Beech and apparently likes to grow low down, whereas the Beefsteak Fungus (fistulina hepatica) tend to be a little higher on the Panshanger estate Oaks, a spent example of which is shown above right. it was pointed out that if a bracket fungus is vertical on a fallen tree you know it came down with said tree because brackets grow horizontally.

We had completed a three hour meandering circular walk and the last thing I saw of note was a Common Mallow (Malva sylvestris) that had snapped close to the ground and yet still had two decent blooms showing in mid November.

What an enjoyable wander we had been on, I've learnt some stuff that I previously didn't know which is always a good thing but it also shows you how much you don't know too!

By the way, the sixteen varieties of indigenous trees noted today were Pendunculate Oak, Hornbeam, Beech, English Elm, Lime, Holly, Alder, Silver Birch, Cherry, Larch, Willow, Sweet Chestnut, Yew, Elder, Sycamore and Scots Pine.

Spalted Firewood Stuff

As detailed in this kuksa blog I had the good fortune to see some spalted birch in a bag of firewood in my local Waitrose and once I'd finished my Kuksa I had to decide what to make out of the remaining wood.

The kuksa was the first thing I wanted to attempt and the blog details the difficulties this kiln dried wood can present.

I had a small and knobbly but highly patterned piece that was waste from the kuksa. I was due to drop my eldest son off in Manchester to start his university adventure and I had a  last minute light bulb moment. I would cut the piece in half, put in a marathon sanding session to both flatten and level the pieces and then carve two hearts, the idea being that my son had one to hang up as did we as a reminder that we were thinking about him whilst away.

Whilst I would have liked just a little longer to refine the shape I was happy to have got them ready in time. I also made and posted one of two key rings from the remaining heart waste.

 

Next up was a slightly a long thin length that had a slight twist to it. I decided to attempt a net needle which I started off at home and  finished on a recent overnighter.

I was quite chuffed that I'd got my eye in to avoid the slight twist but the finished needle still had a very slight bend in it. The bend was minimal and wouldn't have stopped it functioning but I wanted to try and remove it and steam was to be the answer.

I have made myself a wood steamer but it seemed overkill for something a few inches long so I tied the needle between two off cuts and put it through a hot dishwasher cycle which did the job. I finished all the pieces with walnut oil except this one which I tried linseed oil on.

When I started the kuksa I also did a little work on a spoon too, it was now time to finish this off. Six done and onto the next...

 

The shape of the off cut rather dictated the spoon orientation, the patterning was slightly better on the underside but I was still pleased with the outcome. As detailed in the kuksa blog I was a bit concerned about overworking it and bits falling off so I left the neck of the spoon a little thicker than I'd like but I'm still happy with it.

 

And onto the final off cut which was arguably the runtiest of the lot. I'd envisaged making a basic camp butter knife but the dark area on in the above picture was a natural depression so I changed tack and decided to utilise this as a bowl on a second spoon. Like the other spoon I had a preference for the underside spalting but of course the depression dictated the orientation.

I got pretty much all the shaping done and then started making the bowl with a crook spoon and it went from fairly plain to the gorgeous oval shaped markings that thankfully didn't disappear as I finished up.

Now my patience with woodworking isn't usually that good, along the lines of if a spoon isn't finished in fifteen minutes it will get the 'Bored now' treatment. As this was desired spalted wood I felt the urge to stick with the various projects to completion.

Should you wish to see a couple of guys making exceptional items I'd suggest visiting  Jon Mac's blog and the primitive point blog

Roger Phillips Mushroom Foray

Mycophobe is a phobia of mushrooms and whilst I’m not concerned by them I don’t like the taste one bit, so I call myself a gastronomic mycophobe instead and to that end I’ve never really put much effort into getting to know them whilst out an about.

So when Carol Hunt contacted me to see if I wanted to take her place on a Roger Phillips mushroom foray because she was working I initially wondered if I was a suitable stand in. It took just a few seconds to give my head a wobble and realise that if I couldn’t learn off a legendary mycologist, forager and writer I never would.

Roger arranged the New Forest foray as part of a crowd funding package for his latest book called Wild Cooking (available for a pledge on www.unbound.com) which has just reached it's pledge target. Carol did ask that I try and get some material to do an article (as she would have done) for Bushcraft Magazine so when I met up in the pre-arranged carpark I was unsurprisingly the only one without a basket so that meant I could focus taking pictures, not mushrooms. 

 

I would also suggest that I was the least clued up member of the party so it was nice to be outside of my comfort zone. I did however have a little pre-bimble bimble and found a Butter Bolete and some Porcelain mushrooms, I couldn't identify them but an attendee kindly did from my pictures.

Roger called everyone into a huddle and his wife Nicky started by handing out organic Russet apples from a tree in their garden. He then went into some detail concerning the rather complex and confusing matter of mushroom foraging policy in the New Forest and as Storm Callum eased we were off.

 

We stopped a mere sixty seconds walk from the car park because several folk found two nice patches of Fly Agaric and Chanterelle  mushrooms-What a start. Once we moved off it was a very relaxed and bespoke  feel to the whole event with some clued up foragers coming and going and a few of us stating closer to Roger and his Nicky whilst they both spotted and identified any mushrooms that came into their view.

I’d come armed with a note pad as well as a camera and as we wended our way through the Beech, Holly, Birch and Oak wood I realised that by being shown certain mushroom types that I was having a mild epiphany so what I would have just previously termed a ‘brownish mushroom that looks like everything else’ I could now put a name to. It also helped the texture, smell, habitat and symbiosis of the mushrooms was shared and discussed as we walked and talked. 

Every time I turned to see where Roger was he would typically be surrounded by attendees rolling a mushroom in his hands like the above picture.

 

As some of the break out foragers randomly returned to the fold it was rather exciting to view their baskets trying to guess what they had and when Roger viewed the baskets he too was as excited as I was which really showed his genuine fascination in this broad topic. I was, of course, seeing mushrooms such as the Horn of Plenty and the spectacular oxidising Scarletina Bolete for the first time.

 

Roger had been very biddable during the walk when I asked for magazine specific pictures (for a potential cover shot which were considered but didn't quite make it) and on the homeward leg I was chatting with him and his wife and offered to take a picture of both of them which they readily accepted.

Before I knew it I could see the cars through the trees and we were at the end of the walk, but the experience didn’t end there. roger's wife handed out homemade dried apple rings, I organised a group photo, books were signed, further discussions were had, I got to do an quick question and answer session with Roger and I traded some Plum and Hawthorn leather for a small Penny Bun to have a taste with the advice to cook it in butter until crisp to stand a chance of liking it. 

And cue the group photo in time honoured fashion. If you attended please feel free to download a copy and forward this to anyone else who may not have seen it. I’ve been to many Bushcraft events, courses and the like but this group was one of the most friendly and freely gave advice when Roger wasn’t. Oh, and I still don’t like mushrooms.

 

Having got on this foray by chance I duly signed up for a copy of Roger's book, how many gems go under the radar like this I wonder. Above are a couple of shots of the article I did. 

 

So to the Penny Bun tasting once back home...I'm still a gastronomic mycophobe after trying it, anything less than crispy just made me pull faces. 

as previously mentioned Roger also did a question and answer session for the article which I've reproduced below. He also gave me a recipe from the forthcoming book too but I have decided to leave that off. I've also included some of the many other pictures that I took in between the questions.

Q1 Do you have a favourite edible and non-edible mushroom?

An impossible question. I am interested in the whole function of fungi. I talk of them as the third force; one plants Two Animals Three Fungi, The function of a large group of the woodland fungi is living in symbiosis with trees and plants, the fungi we see are the fruits of the actual fungal plants, the plants are very delicate fibres so tiny that they cannot be seen with the naked eye (Mycelium), they are about 100 times more efficient than tree roots and are thus able to supply trees and other plants with  minerals and trace elements and water essential to the healthy growth of the trees. In return the trees supply the fungi with the sugars and other elements essential to the life of the fungi. They have been helping plants survive since the first plants developed. Science has so far analysed more than 8,000 species of plant which have these associations and the discovery is only just beginning.

Ugly Milk Cap

Q2  What are your thoughts concerning the whole issue of permission to pick mushrooms?

The question of collecting mushrooms is under debate. Many woods have attempted to ban mushroom collecting, but there is a vast store of evidence that suggests that it is not in any way detrimental to the propagation of the fungi, the simplest way of looking at it is that you are just collecting the fruit and as with other fruit picking you avoid damaging the plant and only take the actual fruit (the mushroom). A simple example is the truffle, it propagates it’s self by spreading its spores as do all fungi, but to do this it puts out a pheromone imitating the sexual pheromone of a female boar on heat, thus demanding to be picked and eaten.

False Death Cap

Q3 Tell us a little about your latest crowdfunded book called Wild Cooking, what prompted you to write it?

The new book is called “Wild Cooking” and is to be published by the crowd funding publisher Unbound, if anyone is interested in my work they can help by pledging to buy the book in advance by going to the unbound website the address is:  unbound.com/books/wild-cooking.

Amethyst Deceiver

Q4 What is the difference between a mushroom, a toadstool and a fungus?

Toadstool is just another word for mushroom but it has a slightly evil connotation, which dates back to times when no one understood fungi at all and people had a fear of them as ungodly. The word fungus covers the whole group including the things which do not look like mushrooms at all like brackets growing on trees.

Artists Bracket

Q5 How many uses are there for mushrooms over and above being consumed?

Apart from the uses I covered in question one, there is another vast group of fungi that break down dead mater like logs, twigs and leaves. We refer to them as the rubbish collectors, just imagine the state of woods if they were not there to clear up the detritus.  

Hedgehog mushroom

Q6 I am working on a new book which is based on researches into all food sources including fungi. I look into traditional uses and knowledge that has been lost. A good example is the garden plants Dahlia where originally sent to Europe as food plants (the tubers are eaten in South America along with potatoes). Just think of the edible garden flowers which are ignored.

Sulphur Knight

Q7Are there any European mushroom varieties that you wish grew in the UK?

The favourite mushroom of Julius Caesar was is now known as Caesar’s mushroom (Amanita caesarea) It is a delicious but is not found in Britain! 

A full basket

Q8 Of all the edible mushrooms, which one would you try to persuade a non-mushroom eater to try?

Eating wild mushrooms can be dangerous or even deadly, always check with an expert. There is no rule of thumb that will sort out the poisonous fungi from the edible.