Parrot fashion

Though not as rare as hen’s teeth, a bright green mushroom is nonetheless pretty unusual in the British Isles. Remarkably, the parrot waxcap also has eye-catching blue, yellow and orange forms. It is, says naturalist Peter Marren, “a mushroom of many colours”. For all that, it is petite, reaching only 4cm wide when fully grown. The cap is viscid – that is, it has a slimy coating and feels wet to the touch. Like most other waxcap species, this flamboyant fungus hates fertiliser, preferring the mossy sogginess of unimproved grassland.

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