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Twelve of us met on a cold bright morning in Bransdale. Tom Denney had very kindly arranged with the farmer, Gordon Feathersone from Moor House Farm, for us to park in his field and allow us to walk back across his fields.

Here we came across dozens of enormous white Lactarius mushrooms, all anything between 12 and 20 cms wide. This was very exciting as it turned out to be Lactarius vellereus, which is new to Ryedale, and has only been recorded 14 times in VC 62. It had not been there two weeks earlier when we had done a recce. It is amazing that such a big brazen fungus could have gone unnoticed in Ryedale, so please keep your eyes open for big white fungi that produce milk!

There were also now lots of specimens of the Piggyback fungus Asterophora lycoperdoides, which were not there two weeks before. This is a small domed, dusky white mushroom growing on the remains of dead black Russula nigricans.

Piggyback fungus Asterophora lycoperdoides on old russula Russula nigricans

Two weeks previously there had been lots of specimens of another parasitic fungus on a fungus: Pseudoboletus parasiticus, which is a little Bolete that grows on the Common Earthball Scleroderma citrinum. Now there were just a few rather old specimens. It was dry, and there were not a huge number of fungi about but what there was, was really interesting, and I am sure there were lots more there that we did not see or could not identify.

This little bit of undisturbed oak woodland in a valley in the middle of the moors was just beautiful and makes this a very special spot that I will certainly return to.

Back at the cars we thanked Rhona for a most interesting trip and shared some excellent cake.