What’s that growing out of that tree?

Published 15 February 2015

Fungi growing out of a tree
Fungi growing out of a tree

For many years I worked for the BBC. You’ve probably never heard of them. It’s not a very big nor significant organisation. Anyway, whilst there I spent about eight years working in the BBC Red Button team. This isn’t a particularly relevant to much here, except that two of the people I worked with had a definite anti-mushroom vibe going on.

Their logic was that mushrooms eat your stomach, and therefore will slowly kill you. Or something. To be honest, it’s been many years and I can’t exactly remember. But it was along those lines.

Whatever it was, it never put me off eating the things. The edible ones anyway. But there’s no denying that fungi are curious things; feasting off dead matter or having symbiotic relationships with other plants.

Some of them put on spectacular displays too, such as this cluster, seen on the East Highland Way near Kincraig. The whole of the East Highland Way is a bit of a fungi-lovers paradise. Whilst walking it in September last year, barely a mile went by without us seeing at least one mushroom or toadstool on the floor, usually in extremely photogenic circumstances. Clusters like this were rarer, and therefore even more appreciated.

And even better, as we left them well alone, they would never have eaten our stomachs. And I think we can all agree that that is a win-win situation all round.

Comments

Chrissie from Nottingham

27 May 2018 at 12:40 pm

While out walking, my friend and I are always coming across mushrooms of one sort or another and they never fail to intrigue me, so much so that my friend bought me a mushroom book for my birthday! When I find it I will tell you what this one is called. :)

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