Growing up, I lived with an irrational fear of mushrooms. It’s quite common for people not to like them on their pizza, but my phobia ran deeper. I shuddered at the sight of them! The smell, the texture, the taste, all put me off. I remember once feeling quite ill lifting the lid of an unassuming silver serving tray at a hotel breakfast buffet to reveal a hissing pit of steaming button mushrooms.
📷 Andrew Darnton
Thinking back, I was taught that mushrooms are sinister things; that they're all extremely poisonous, to kick them over when they start growing on the lawn, and that Toad in Super Mario Brothers was not to be trusted... Okay, I made that last one up. But it seems many people learn from an early age that they should keep away from our fungi friends.
The fear of mushrooms is common enough to have its own fancy name - mycophobia. This always made me feel less ridiculous, but if age has taught me anything, it’s that my fear was based on a lie. Fungi are incredible and not at all scary, so now I’m making up for lost time - learning all about these amazing organisms.
📷 Andrew Darnton
When I’m not volunteering with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, I spend a lot of time in our upland environments, training to be a mountain leader. The more time I spend around the hills, the more I’ve started to notice and appreciate the details in our landscape, both large and small.
Once the beautiful wild flowers of spring and summer have packed up for the season, it’s time for fungi to take centre-stage. The small (and not so small) mushrooms we see on the surface are just the fruiting body of a larger and more complex network (known as mycelium). I started reading more about this secretive world beneath our feet; how the vast majority of plants rely on it for nutrients, how trees dial in to communicate with each other over the ‘wood wide web’, and how these unassuming, brainless organisms are clever enough to map out entire rail networks. My fungi therapy had begun...
📷 Andrew Darnton
Did you know that the bolete mushroom can change colour when you touch its spongy gills? Have you ever sniffed the super stinky sulphur knight? And wait until you meet the common earth ball - it might look like a potato but cut it in half and its inky black interior tells you it’s not one for making chips.
There are many different species of fungi (around 15,000 in the UK), so it’s quite daunting for the novice to know where to start. You certainly don’t need to learn long lists of Latin names to enjoy this magical world. Instead, try noticing the details. Where do they grow? What do the gills look like? Do they smell of anything? Are they slimy?
📷 Andrew Darnton
One of the perks of volunteering at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust is having the opportunity to attend a varied programme of events throughout the year. I was fortunate enough to join Kat Woolley (Inspiring People Manager) for a fungi walk around Potteric Carr nature reserve. After talking about some of the techniques we could use to help with identification, we set off down the railway route to see what treats were in store.
While Kat immediately started spotting mushrooms hiding in the leaf litter, the rest of the group took a little longer to get our eye in. But once warmed up, we were finding new and exciting examples at every turn. Reaching Black Carr field, our tally shot up. I counted at least 40 different species of mushroom on our walk, each one more intriguing than the last.
Even if fungi aren’t your bag, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust have a volunteer training programme that is open to all active and registered volunteers. You’ll be sure to find something of interest!
