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You don’t need to travel far to find fungi. Some of Britain’s most fascinating species could be growing on the tree outside your front door, in the local park, or tucked into a shady corner of your own garden. Let’s go and find them.
This UK Fungus Day, we’re asking you to take a closer look at the wild world hiding right on your doorstep.
Grab a coat, head outside, and see how many of these species you can spot. Don’t forget to snap a photo and tag us, we’d love to see what you find.
Urban areas are often overlooked when it comes to wildlife, but fungi have a habit of popping up in the most unexpected places.
Look for dead or dying wood and you may well find Turkey Tail Trametes versicolor, a multicoloured bracket fungus that can grow up to 10 cm across, or roughly the size of a side plate. Its tough, leathery caps grow in a semicircular fan with a thin wavy margin, and concentric rings running from beige to black usually finish with a pale cream edge.
On the same log, keep an eye out for Candlesnuff Fungus Xylaria hypoxylon. Growing up to 6 cm tall, about the length of your little finger, it looks exactly like a burnt candle wick, black at the base and powdery white towards the tip. Sometimes it stays simple in shape, other times it branches out like tiny antlers.
And if you find yourself near a churchyard or an unmown patch of grass, look down for the Blackening Waxcap Hygrocybe conica. Its cap stays distinctly conical even as it ages, starting out in shades of orange and yellow before slowly turning black with age and upon bruising, a strange transformation to watch unfold through autumn.
Even the most familiar corners of your neighbourhood can reveal something new.
Jelly Ear Auricularia auricula-judae, is aptly named. Its brownish red to pale pink purple fruiting body is smooth but undulating, with folds and wrinkles that really do resemble an ear. It’s most often found on Elder, living or dead, though it can turn up on other deciduous wood too.
Head to an oak tree and you might be lucky enough to find Chicken of the Woods Laetiporus sulphureus, a bracket fungus made up of several thick, overlapping brackets that can reach 40 cm across, about the size of a large dinner plate. Fan shaped and fleshy, its yellow surface pales with age, and the texture is genuinely reminiscent of cooked chicken.
Watch for the Shaggy Inkcap Coprinus comatus, standing tall and white in grasslands (and woodlands). It starts out as an elongated egg shape before opening into a bell, its upturned scales giving it a shaggy look. As it matures, the black margin curls upward and the gills slowly melt into an inky substance, a strange and wonderful process if you catch it at the right time.
And of course, the most colourful fungi of all – the wonderful waxcaps! From the bright purple of Violet Coral Clavaria zollingeri, to the vibrant red of Scarlet Waxcap Hygrocybe coccinea – they can be easy to spot and spectacular to see up close!
If you are thinking of going on a grassland fungi hunt – why not take part in our annual Waxcap Watch? You don’t need to be a mycologist to get started, just a phone! Find out everything you need to know to get started with Waxcap Watch here.
Fungi are often called the forgotten kingdom, neither plant nor animal, and endlessly overlooked. But they play an extraordinary role in our ecosystems, breaking down dead wood, supporting trees and providing food and shelter for wildlife.
By learning to spot the fungi on your own doorstep, you’re helping to build a fuller picture of where they live and thrive. So this UK Fungus Day, take a walk, look a little closer, and let us know what you discover.
Our Senior Conservation Officer for Fungi, Aileen Baird, knows this feeling well. Last October, a flash of pink among the fallen leaves led her to a Wrinkled Peach fungus, a species now classified as Vulnerable to Extinction. Moments like these are a reminder of just how much is still out there to find, and how much we stand to lose without urgent action.
Share your finds with us on social media and tag Plantlife, and if you’d like to help us protect species like the Wrinkled Peach for future generations, you can give a gift to fungi today.
Donate to our appeal and help protect vulnerable species, conserve the habitats they depend on and strengthen the ecosystems that support us all.
This is a pivotal moment for fungal conservation. The decisions we make now will determine what we discover, protect and pass on to future generations.
Recent studies have revealed that there’s so much fungi out there that we don’t know about.
But how do we know this? Plantlife’s Rachel Inhester, from our science team, tells us why.
This incredible fact from the Kew report, ‘State of the World’s Plants and Fungi 2023’, highlights just how much there is to learn when it comes to fungi. That was certainly my first thought when I read this statement. It’s exciting to think of all the discoveries we have yet to make, and it gives an indication as to the huge amount of work ahead of us, to find and classify such a large number of unknown species. The report goes on to estimate that there are between 2-3 million species of fungi in the world, and as of yet, only 155,000 of those species have been formally named!
Fungi can be difficult to detect for a number of reasons:
As I was contemplating just how little we know about these extraordinary organisms; another thought came to mind. How can we estimate that 90% of fungal species are unknown to science? How did we come up with that number? In other words, how can we know what we don’t know?
Well, it turns out, that to arrive at such an estimate, you first need a team of fungal specialists, known as mycologists, and then you need the time and capacity to critically evaluate all the current knowledge on the topic so far. It was certainly no simple undertaking!
Past methods of calculating the number of fungal species, were not without issue, so the team of experts definitely had their work cut out for them. Previous estimates couldn’t be completely relied upon on their own. Sampling techniques varied and some fungal groups were not considered in certain studies. Some reports were simply outdated due to the discoveries that have been made since they were first published.
It’s important that we try to speed up this process so that we can understand the fascinating world of fungi around us. Fungi are interconnected with nearly all life on earth. They can improve nutrient uptake of plants, improve the immunity of their plant hosts against pathogens, they are biomass decomposers, and some species are used to make medicines [1].
The team of specialists decided to focus on 4 key academic areas to better estimate the number of expected species. These research areas were scaling laws, fungus to plant ratios, actual vs previously known species and DNA based studies.
Organisms are classified into 8 main levels or ‘taxa’. From highest to lowest, these taxa are: Domain – Kingdom – Phylum – Class – Order – Family – Genus – Species. This is a way of organising organisms into groups which become more inclusive with every level. Let’s use the Fly Agaric fungi as an example. At species level we simply have Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria). The Fly Agaric is an individual species, but individual species can belong to a larger group, or genus, in this case the genus Amanita. A genus is a grouping of similar species which all share a common ancestor. The groupings, or taxa, get progressively larger as you move up each level until you reach the levels of Kingdom and Domain. The Fly Agaric is part of the Fungi Kingdom which includes all other fungal species.
Scaling law studies aim to predict species diversity by looking at patterns in the numbers of ‘higher taxa’ and the number of known species in each.
In this case, information from the level of phylum (the third taxa) to genus (the seventh taxa) was used. Patterns in the numbers of these ‘higher taxa’ were compiled to predict fungal species diversity. Previous studies were assessed by the fungal experts, who adjusted the estimates to include recent discoveries and accurate numbers of known species.
Fungus to plant ratios have been estimated in multiple studies over the years and for a variety of habitats. Therefore, if we know the number of plant species, we can make a pretty good estimate as to the number of fungal species.
However, the fungal experts were still faced with challenges when examining previous research. Studies varied in how they calculated the ratios to begin with. Some only considered fungi with a known association to plants and other studies were much broader. Coupled with the fact that lots of fungi can be difficult to detect and may have no association with plants whatsoever, a lot of the predictions were considered an underestimate. On evaluating earlier research, the specialists felt that a ratio of 5:1, of fungi to plant species, in temperate areas and 4:1 in tropical locations, was more accurate than previous estimates.
Some species of fungi can be difficult to differentiate. This can cause an underestimation of species numbers as multiple species are occasionally classified as one and the same. The fungal experts examined a study which had investigated this in detail where they concluded that there were 11 times as many actual species compared with previously known species. Varying definitions of exactly what a species is, creates difficulty with this method of estimation.
DNA based methods have been an incredibly powerful tool in documenting fungal diversity around the world. A single sample can allow scientists to sequence the DNA of whole communities of fungi. These samples can come from a variety of places, including soil and deadwood. The samples are then analysed and any DNA within the sample is extracted and sequenced.
This DNA gives us a list of all the fungal species found in a sample, including species which we can’t even see, providing us with a more accurate representation of fungal species numbers.
For Kew’s report, it provided the final piece of the puzzle in answering the question of ‘how many species of fungi do we think there are globally?’.
Using all the information and research available to them, the fungal experts refined their predictions and came up with an estimate of 2.5 million species of fungi worldwide! [2]
So there really was a lot of work that went into this seemingly impossible estimation. As it stands, this estimate reveals how many species we have yet to discover.
At this time, around 2,500 new species of fungi are identified and described each year. And if the above estimate is accurate, that would mean waiting 750-1000 years for us to find and describe the rest. [2]
As we discover more species, we shall hopefully uncover more benefits of the fungi around us, as well as conserving as many species as possible before we potentially lose them forever.
Fungi underpin the health of our environment and are key to resolving the climate, ecological and societal challenges we face. Your donation could help increase understanding of fungi and get them the support they need.
Here we delve into this mind-boggling realm to discover ten of weirdest, wackiest and most wonderful facts from the world of fungi!
Our specialist botanical advisor Sarah Shuttleworth revisits her favourite fungi find – the rare Blue Tooth fungus.
Britain is home to some of the most important waxcap grasslands in the world. However many species are becoming rare and declining; they need identifying and protecting.
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