Apologies for the late post! It’s been rather chaotic at the institute this week, what with it being Widowbird breeding season! Also, we have a stall coming up in Gloucester on Feb 3rd and 4th of interesting artifacts and specimens- so if you’re in the area, come and check it out at the ‘What’s Your Game’ larp fair!

The rootball is found in damp areas perfect for fungus- woodland, rough ground, even some back gardens. Though essentially harmless, make sure your cat/dog/domesticated griffin doesn’t try and eat one- the mushrooms are usually poisonous.

January 29, 2018 0

Fl#04: Mushroom Men

Beware you mushroom gatherers

Whose food in woodland grows

Beware the fungus watchers

When crossing rotten groves

The mushroom men have seen you

That fact you must assume

So take your feast and quickly leave

The watchers in the gloom

And draw across your curtains

When you are home tonight

Don’t look outside until the dawn-

For mushrooms fear the light.

Jesper’s note: So says the poem- and the mushroom men have been known to follow home those who harvest the fungi they watch over in woodland areas. However, there is no evidence that they ‘fear the light’- they are simply nocturnal.

August 13, 2017 0

F#10: Fungal Glum

Name: Fungal Glum

Class: Neutral

Designation: Fauna

Description: A brown, hairy body with two large feet and large yellow eyes. Algae, fungi and moss grow in its fur, most distinctively the top of its head.

Notes: At first you might mistake it for a tuft of dead grass or a root-ball, but then you see its face, its eyes, its large feet…

The fungal glum gets its eponymous fungus by not moving very much. Once it finds a good spot in its preferred damp habitat- marsh, swamp, or dense woodland- there it stays.

It is a symbiotic relationship: the glum and the fungus provide each other with protection from their respective predators. Foxes, badgers and others that would eat the glum are put off by the poisonous toadstools and algae; and insects attracted to the fungus are eaten by the glum, which also provides a perfect growing environment.

Entry Compiled by: Thursday Madaki