This woodland wandering series depicts my adventures around Macro & Treescape photography; which will also involve my mushroom hunting. Should I find anything new I will point you to the specific post, but normally this series centres around mushrooms which have already been documented, so I will take this further opportunity to document younger or older specimens, which I will add to each photo album.
04th of February & the 06th of February - Here is a summary of what I found on the mushroom hunting. Lots of Hairy Curtain Crust (post 06), some very young & even younger Jelly Ear (post 09), one Common Earthball (post 05), & last but not least a whole host of Birch Polypores (post 08), the latter of which I harvested to make some tea. I am just supping this right now in fact as I am writing. I am dried them out in the oven until they are not flexible & then simmered them for around 15 minutes. It is intended to base of a pan to have sufficient enough tea - depending on the size or number you picked, you can now keep them in jars & they'll last for years. One key note is to make sure to cut into smaller slices or cubes prior to dehumidifying, heating, or naturally drying them by hanging them or leaving in a dark warm place, that way they'll store better.
Taste wise, I think this depends on how you dry it. It retains that very earthy, mushroomy scent & taste but not as bitter as I anticipated; especially compared to it's edibility, when eaten I found this to be more bitter as apposed to being consumed as a tea (1 teaspoon of sugar knocks that bitterness back though). This mushroom has a very high acidic (triterpene) property content; which is why it is used as an anti-inflammatory, anti-septic & anti-bacterial. These are a few of the many beneficial impacts of the Birch Polypore. Back to the drying processes, I will try every method of drying & compare to make these findings more credible. This is a beautiful remedy & healer. I find picking mushrooms free & taking responsibility for your own food sources makes you feel mentally better as well reaping the efforts in a physical & spiritual sense.
I was really happy to see the Common Earthball again; specially in a earlier stage of it's life. I saw this on the 04th & made a promise to go back that weekend in hope of seeing it rupture. I did go back & although the scales were cracking to where you could see developing ostiole, sadly it had not yet ruptured. See Figures 02 & 03 below to see differences in 48 hours. I will put an update on this week of it's progress. I note to mention, I saw this among the part of the woodland where Oaks, Birches begin to appear among the Beeches.
I am happy to document the Jelly Ear Mushroom at really stages of it's life - these photographs will be added to the photo album. Starting life quite round, they quickly develop the ear shaped fruiting body & increase in size quite considerably up to a 10cm diameter cap.
With the curtain crusts, they were aplenty on dead birch & beech branches & widely developed tiers. I got here around 2pm so the light was hitting perfectly from the west as it was getting lower so the photographs came out with some nice ambience. I also took the opportunity to photograph the sprouting ferns which are beginning to make a much more visible appearance around the woodland. Last weekend some were just peaking through but now you have to tread lightly!
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