Powderpuff Bracket Fungus

After a day among the crowds in London, I felt the need for some solitude, so headed off to a local wood for a slow fungus bimble. Mind you, being Sunday, it wasn't that quiet and at one point I was quite alarmed by some very violent yelling, which caused me to retreat off the path in case I got involved in a teenage brawl! 

A good move, as it turned out, because I found a nice group of sweetly-scented, bluish-green Aniseed Toadstools on the wood bank (see extra). The noise abated, and I carried on along the path. Very shortly I came across a whole group of people in Medieval clothing - a live action role-playing group - not scary at all! 

I found a good variety of fungi, with some species present in huge number, but this little bracket fungus on a rotting conifer stump was the strangest. At first I wasn't sure whether it was a fungus or a slime mould (and I'm still not 100% sure) but I think it's a Powderpuff Bracket Postia ptychogaster. When young, the fruiting body is a shaggy lump of white mycelium. As it matures, a layer of spore-producing pores forms on the underside.

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