Rhodotus palmatus - Wrinkled Peach Fungus

Rhodotus palmatus _Wrinkled Peach Fungus

The Wrinkled Peach Fungus is a lovely little fungus.  Its habitat is elm logs and due to the lack of mature elm trees since Dutch Elm disease is less common these days.

During the late Summer I visited Bunny Wood (Nottinghamshire) and came across a huge pile of stacked timber.  I noticed right on the top of these logs a tiny little pink fungus.  Luckily for me I was with a friend who was prepared to hoist me to the top of this pile of logs.  Not an easy photo to take kneeling on top of wobbling logs, but well worth the effort as at that time I didn't know what I was photographing!

This little fungus is beautiful.  The most delicate rosy pink and the cap, gills, and stem are both a gelatinous texture. The Wrinkled Peach I saw was a young one and the stem had blood red droplets oozing from it.
I would dearly love to see a mature example as the wrinkled texture becomes very apparent and is rather attractive. 

The characteristics are as follows:  Cap 5-10 cm across, convex then flattened.  Margin in-rolled.  Pink at first, turning later peach to apricot.  Clearly wrinkled at maturity.  Gelatinous.  Gills are inter connected and more pale than the cap.  On elm logs or beams, early autumn to winter.  Rather rare.

Thank you very much to Howard Williams who helped with the identification.

This photograph can now be seen on Browse 5 at  www.fungiworld.co.uk