The finest porcelain.

We were truly blessed this morning, whilst much of Scotland was receiving a deluge of Biblical proportions, Aberdeenshire was warm and bright with blue skies. Just the day for another fungal foray but, sadly, the fungi were few and far between. I was giving up hope of success when I came across of a troop of Porcelain fungi Oudemansiella mucida. Like Chinese porcelain these attractive mushrooms are, when mature, white and translucent.

The Porcelain Fungus, is specific to beech wood. It appears in autumn on dead trunks and on fallen branches, and can be present in vast numbers.

The genus Oudemansiella was named in honour of the Dutch mycologist Cornelius Anton Jan Abraham Oudemans (1825 - 1906) while the specific epithet mucida refers to the layer of transparent mucus that covers the caps of these mushrooms.