The Roaches, Staffordshire and Isle of Skye, Scotland, April/May 2011

The Roaches, Staffordshire April 2011

A very hot day indeed.  Drove to The Roaches in Staffordshire.  The Roaches taken from Les roches (Rocks) is an impressive mound of rocks rising to 505m.  The primary reason for this trip was to have a challenging walk.  And a challenging walk it was, scrambling up to the top of rocks with Chris at times pushing me up from behind as my legs were too short to climb from one  rock to the next - sun high in the sky and every where dry and dusty. I did not expect to see any fungi as the ground was dry due to lack of rain.

We walked through Lud's Church which is a hidden chasm with sheer walls 60 feet high.  These walls being damp and covered with moss, lichen and ferns even in a mini drought.  Decided to hunt through the mossy walls and found a minute solitary little fungus.  Cap pure white, 0.3-0.5 cm diameter with white very close gills. The stem being very flexible and almost transluscent.  Currently I cannot id this.

Isle of Skye, May 2011 

This was our first trip to the Isle of Skye so did not quite know what to expect either with the weather or the geography.  An Atlantic low settled over The Inner Hebrides all week, so it was extremely windy with outbursts of heavy rain.  This made the scenes very dramatic and of course brought out the fungi spores.  Spent the week in an old Crofters Cottage.

Briars,  An Entoloma I think.  Greasy cap with the right characteristics.


Trottenish Penninsular, Panaeolus campanulatu or sphinctrinus possibly.
Lovely little fungus, in deep wet grass. Grey mottled cap more buff in the centre.
Nice close dark gills and a beautiful tapering stem with floury texture.


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