Last of the Summer whine
But it's not. We're just fooling ourselves.
Look at this, on the ground:
and these, by a fence:
and this great big one on a tree:
Fungi. I'm pretty sure the last one is Laetiporus sulphureus, also known as Chicken of the Woods, since you ask. The others are a mystery to me - as, indeed are all fungi. They pop up very quickly and disappear just as fast. Some you can eat, some will kill you if you eat them.
When I was a child the garden often grew the Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) which smells like rotting meat and looks like, well, a Phallus Impudicus though sadly I never noticed. Unfortunately my grandmother dug them out every year - she no doubt thought they were rude - and now there are none left.
But all these kinds of fungi mean one thing. Goodbye to the lazy hazy crazy days of summer and hello to the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.
It's autumn. But wait, I grumble every year, I haven't had enough summer yet. Not enough walking on hot sand, not enough wandering through honeysuckle lanes, not enough lying on lush grass.
Too bad. It'll be the spiders' webs next.
posted by Daphne at 7:21 pm
2 Comments:
I walked in the woods once, by The Hollies [Headingly somewhere] with a chap who knew a bit about fungus and a lot about poisoning [the right distribution of knowledge in these matters I feel] and he was forever reaching under a rotting log and plucking out a strange looking mushstool or toadroom.
The tastes were amazing - peppery, sweet, sharp, a lingering notion of oak barrels with a hint of a grape-crushers socks mingling with a bit of fluff from the cuff of a fisherman's sweater after a particularly good day amongst the lobsterpots...
Suffice it to say, I lived to tell the tale. He told me that if it looks revolting it's probably alright, it's the ones that look like mushrooms that you have to be wary of.
Call yourself a pedant? "...and now there are none left" indeed. Or have you given up on that one?
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