wood blewits

Damp, decay and leaves:
ideal for the growth of the fruiting bodies of fungi.

Our site was formerly home to a mushroom farm and so the expectation should be that we would be collecting field mushrooms by the bucket load at this time of year. Not a bit of it.
We do have  a range of fungi on site, but my fungal experience is limited to athletes foot and the aisles of the supermarket and I've yet to find any on site prepacked and labelled. So most go unidentified.

So, delighted to spot wood blewits (Clitocybe nuda) growing in the area we are clearing. Field mushroooms and wood blewits  are the two fungi commonly eaten in the UK but wood blewits are rarely seen for sale these days.

I find their taste strong and their texture is rather slimey if eaten on their own and I haven't had any for years. My grandfather claimed to be a wood blewit aficionado and I recall him telling me that you would only find them in fields where stallions had served mares! That may have contributed to my lack of interest in eating them.