Sulphur Tuft:
This species is really quite toxic - the bitter taste when raw is rather deceptively lost upon cooking - but the toxins are definitely not!
One of the very common mushrooms found growing on tree bases and fallen wood, characterised by yellowish caps with a paler rim and with the yellowish stems blending with an orange brown base. The purple-brown spores gradually turn the gills from yellow to a striking green. Watch out for the related species, Hypholoma capnioides, found on conifer stumps, whose gills gradually turn greyish rather than greenish.
The genus Hypholoma is characterised by the web-like threads connecting the cap with the stem that can be seen when young.
This group of Sulphur Tufts in Dene Park developed in less than a week on this particular log by the side of the track.
One advantage Hypholoma fasciculare. has is its ability to form tubes that can allow rapid spread to new sources of nutrition. It releases super-oxides and laccases to attack the mycelium of other species of wood-inhabiting fungi as well as the lignin in the wood itself.
It is a saprobic white rotter which might have some more significance in beech but rot than previously thought.
Might have potential for a new antibiotic as well.
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