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Twelve of us met near Black Forest Lodge on the eastern edge of Cropton Forest. We walked into the forest on a fairly short circuit down through pine and birch trees, but as fungal forayers always travel slowly with so much to see, it took us a good two hours. When we got back to the cars we set out examples of our less common finds on a camping table, and added as many identification labels as we could. Then we congratulated ourselves while eating apples and cake, and drinking tea!

Some fungi had to be taken home for further microscopic examination although we were lucky to have Brian Cockerill from Scarborough Naturalists and Melanie Earle with us so many specimens were identified in situ.

One of the highlights for me was finding several Surprising Webcaps - Cortinarius semisanguineus. This is found on damp mossy ground under conifers, particularly Spruce, and sometimes Birch. It has a fairly ordinary pale slightly yellowish brown cap, so when you turn it over and see it has blood red gills, it really IS surprising. The genus Cortinarius has rust coloured spores and a weblike veil (called a Cortina), joining the cap to the stipe in young specimens, and often all you see of this is a rusty smear at the top of the stem where the spores have got caught on the ripped Cortina. It is notoriously difficult to identify Cortinarius species so it is really nice to find one,at least, that is unmistakeable in the field

Surprising webcap Cortinarius semisanguineus

Species list