St. Georges Mushrooms (calocybe gambosa)
Although the days are getting hot now, we are still living with the consequences of a cold spring. Early flowers and blossom held back by the frost and chilling northerlies are blooming away at the same time as later varieties and up on the drovers track primroses, celandines, wood anemones, blue bells, black thorn and lady’s smock can be seen in a single vista, backed by the luminous yellow rape .
St. Gorge’s mushrooms have been patiently waiting for favourable conditions to produce their fruiting bodies (mushrooms), but this year the window is short – as the ground has warmed it has has also dried in the intense heat and I have found many half formed and desiccated. The temperature favours the mushroom fly though and every cap I picked yesterday was riddled with maggots. A desperate shame as Em and I long for some fungi.
Maggots in the Stem