Climate change making room for the mushrooms
We are deep into the mushroom season, when treasures emerge in even the most unpromising of locations.
A few days ago, cycling along a well-trodden gravel bridleway near my home, I spotted the unmistakable bell-shaped shaggy ink cap, also nicknamed the “lawyer’s wig”. I am no mushroom aficionado but even I can tell this one apart; with its scaly stem, feathery fronds and unique colouring that lies somewhere between a fluffy sheep and a Portuguese man-of-war.
Certainly there is something of the mysterious creature of the deep in the nation’s fungi, emerging as they do from the earth in all manner of preternatural shapes and sizes.
A friend has been foraging in recent days and shown me photographs of mammoth red beefsteak fungi and egg-yolk yellow chanterelles he has collected. Although his main takeaway after spending a day with an expert in the field is that most edible mushrooms have toxic twins that are difficult to distinguish – and really it is easier just to head to the greengrocers.
Mushrooms are very weather dependent, thriving in the damp, humid and relatively warm temperatures we have been experiencing this autumn (even if in the past few days there has been something of a nip in the air).
Normally the mushroom season is curtailed by the first frosts of the year but climate change is having a significant impact on the length of time the fungi are growing for.
Indeed the first autumn frost arrives up to a fortnight later across the south-west of England and South Wales than it did 50 years ago, considerably extending the mushroom season. In recent years there has been talk of mushroom hunters still out in the fields on New Year’s Day.
After a weekend of showers and clouds, next week temperatures look to be on the rise again and becoming increasingly mild by Tuesday. Seems as if the foraging season is not over yet. “Mushroom” for plenty more.