Fungi

Toadstool with teeth and ghostly palm among plant and fungus finds of 2024

Scientists race to discover new species before destruction of natural world drives them to extinction

Damian Carrington Environment editor

19, Dec, 2024 @5:00 AM

Country diary: Something complicated in the tangled grass | Ed Douglas

Blacka Moor, South Yorkshire: With its antler-like structure and aniseed whiff, this exquisite fungus, called meadow coral, is luxuriating in all its strangeness

Ed Douglas

16, Dec, 2024 @5:30 AM

Country diary: Not long now till our favourite beech breaks and falls | Phil Gates

Stanhope Burn, Weardale: Southern bracket fungus has started the job, the winter winds will finish it. But how exactly did the fungus get a foothold?

Phil Gates

07, Dec, 2024 @5:30 AM

Country diary: A gothic masterpiece reaching out of the ground | Jan Miller

Halkyn Mountain, Flintshire, north Wales: This area of ancient, undisturbed land is rich with fungi. Star of the show is the Cordyceps, scourge of nearby ghost moths

Jan Miller

26, Nov, 2024 @5:30 AM

Country diary: A fungi foray where even the familiar grows strange | Country diary

Rowney Warren, Bedfordshire: We count 23 species on our hunt, with specimens as wonderful as their names – amethyst deceiver, yellow stagshorn, beechleaf parachute

Nic Wilson

13, Nov, 2024 @5:30 AM

Country Diary: A quiet autumn for acorns so far – but this oak tree is being productive | Mary Montague

Lagan Valley, County Antrim: In the low light of the woods, the fungi are faring better than the jays and grey squirrels

Mary Montague

08, Nov, 2024 @5:30 AM

Melbourne woman’s death after foraged mushroom dinner prompts coroner’s warning

Loreta Maria Del Rossi died in May, a week after eating mushrooms foraged from her garden in Bayswater

Natasha May

30, Oct, 2024 @2:50 AM

Country diary: Under the dripping canopy, variations in green | Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

Haldon Forest, Devon: I’m drawn to the mosses on a tree stump, each species taking its own portion of the bark

Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

28, Oct, 2024 @5:30 AM

Country diary: The last warm day of the year, and the woodland is changing | Kate Blincoe

Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: Above, the canopy is opening up, letting the light in; below, fungus is beginning to sprout from the dark soil

Kate Blincoe

21, Oct, 2024 @4:30 AM

Fungi could be given same status as flora and fauna under conservation plan

Exclusive: proposal to Cop16 could see ‘funga’ get global legal consideration distinct from flora and fauna

Jonathan Watts

16, Oct, 2024 @11:30 AM

‘VCs need their money back’: why sustainable startups struggle to fix our broken food system

Firms such as Smallhold have lessons to be learned on what business can – and can’t – do in transforming agriculture

Whitney Bauck

04, Oct, 2024 @2:00 PM

Pathogenic microbes blown vast distances by winds, scientists discover

Living microbes that cause disease in humans and host antibiotic-resistance genes carried 1,200 miles