Apprentice of the fungi and flowers.
The snow is here and all my little fungus friends are probably nestled safely under the earth, waiting for a better time to fruit.
which means i’m back inside reflecting on what has been an amazing, crammed full and intense 7 months of my apprenticeship.
I recently had a meeting with John (the Natural Talent guru), Roy (my mushroom mentor) and Lindsay (wild flower mentor par excellance) and I know i won’t be nestling anywhere this winter except maybe the library or mycology lab! Its exciting though I’ve got loads of projects planned including creating information packs, and interpretation leaflets to raise awareness about grassland fungi as well as more ID of fungi, writing up the data I’ve collected this season and getting to grips with grassland NVC’s (national vegetation classification).
But before I move forward its good to look back. Highlights of the last month include leading a fungi foray at Hopetoun house near Edinburgh. This place really should be a protected site for its incredible array of grassland fungi. I was pretty nervous as my main focus has been grasslands and we were also heading (as fungi forays always will) into the woods. But by some stroke of luck (or are those mushrooms really all knowing, symbiont beings ;P ) pretty much every mushroom that was brought to me, by 20 pairs of eager hands, I could name; at least to genus. Wicked. Didn’t know any of them 6 months ago.
I found a very rare Entoloma (pink gilled fungi) on a NTS grassland on the west coast.
I also gave a talk for the botanical society of scotlands annual meeting to 150 esteemed and knowledgable botanists (gulp) and then another talk to a permaculture college I used to go to in Ireland.
Its been great being able to communicate what I have learnt already. Thats what I love doing, and its easy with fungi because it seems they are so little known, and they are so vital to our ecosystems and life on this earth as we know it.
yay.
Hope everyone has a great christmas
ooh and heres a picture of the Fly Agaric fungus that perhaps inspired the tale of Father Christmas and his flying reindeer.
see you next year!
Ali