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Fungi.

The autumn woods here are a profusion of fungi. A good number are edible but a few are highly poisonous. The nut-brown Cap and the golden yellow Chanterelle are most favoured but the Death-Cap lives up to its name, is responsible for many of the deaths from fungus-poisoning. It is yellowish-green above and white below. The Fly-agaric: scarlet with white spots is poisonous but seldom fatal. Most fungi are saporphytic - they obtain their nutrients from decay but a few are parasitic extracting nutrients from the trees. The victim is usually old or already damaged.

Before going under the bridge, formed by the fractured Silver Birch observe the Razor Strop Fungus. Once used for sharpening razors, as pin-cushions or sliced as cork it is not edible. The host tree will die.

Not all partnerships are one sided or parasitic. In the case of the lichens the alga and the fungus have a symbiotic relationship:- that is one cannot live without the other. Though the species are very different their relationship benefits each other, e.g. in tropical areas birds find food by entering the open month of crocodiles to clean worms from their teeth. In return, the birds raise the alarm when there is any danger.

[The Rabbit] [The Badger] [Ivy] [Honeysuckle] [Moss] [Common Oak] [Pedunculate Oak] [Lichens] [Common Lime]
[The Hedgehog] [The Bramble] [The Chiffchaff] [The Frog Hopper] [Hawthorn] [Tree Roots]
[The Wood Mouse] [The Pigmy Shrew] [The Sycamore] [The Guelder Rose] [The Ash] [Gorse] [Hazel] [Tootworth]
[Goat Willow] [The Rowan] [Common White Beam] [Spindle] [Dog Rose] [The Blackthorn] [Birds] [Grasshoppers & Crickets] [Dragonfly & Damesify] [Feral Goat] [Silver Birch] [Pine Martin] [Fungi] [Lough Carra] [Brown Trout] [The Mute Swan]
[The Otter] [Limestone] [Holly] [The Fox] [The Mighty Oak] [Common Polypody] [Treecreeper] [The Irish Stoat]
[The Hornbeam] [Bats]