Sorry for the big delay in getting this out. Its just me in the visitor centre as Peter has gone home with a nasty stomach bug.

Now that we are well and truely into Autumn all sorts of colourful and bizarre looking fungi are popping up here there and everywhere in the local woodlands.

 Here’s a few interesting facts about mushrooms that you may (or may not) know already.

There are between one million and two and a half million species of fungi on the earth and only 80,000 have been identified! For every one species of plant there are six species of fungi.

Fungi are in an order of their own.  They thrive in a huge variety of conditions, in thin acidic and alkali soils, under trees, mosses and even in sand! Fungi use oxygen for digestion and metabolism and exhale carbon dioxide. Fungi grow from spores which are dispersed in favorable conditions. One fungi can drop as many as 60 billion spores.

 Mushrooms were believed to have magical properties in a range of cultures. The ancient Egyptians valued it so highly that they banned it from being eaten by the working classes. Mushrooms have been used in traditional Chinese medicines top treat many types of health conditions                                   

 Penicillin and streptomycin are examples of potent antibiotics derived from fungi.  New classes of antibacterial and antiviral agents continue to be discovered in the fungal kingdom.  Mushrooms can produce vitamin D upon exposure to sunlight and UV radiation

I thought I’d put in a few photos of mushrooms I’ve spo tted in the woodland around Lowes. Can you guess what they are?