Top 20 Most Common Mushrooms in West Berkshire

The distinctive jelly ear grows mainly through winter and spring, mostly on the dead trunks and branches of elder trees. It occurs around the world and is often cooked into dishes in Asian countries. This ear-shaped jelly mushroom is often available in stores both fresh and dried.

This clustered, overlapping fungus is found all over the world, and is considered native across both the northern and southern hemispheres. Both its common name, hairy curtain crust, and its scientific name, Stereum hirsutum, aptly describe its most obvious features: it is quite tough (stereum) and the younger fruitbodies are notably hairy (hirsutum).

Evernia prunastri grows shrubby on trees. The yellow-green lichen grows up to 10 cm. It consists of up to five millimeters wide shrubby branched bands with a light underside. At the edges of these open dusty (Sorale). Apothecias (with shiny brown disc) are rarely formed.

The common greenshield lichen is a familiar species in temperate forests around the world. It can be found growing on rock outcroppings and trees in a wide variety of habitats. Individuals can grow to be quite large and may be gregarious, forming large mats or sheets on suitable surfaces. Like other lichens, the common greenshield lichen will shrivel and harden when moisture is scarce.

Physcia tenella grows initially in small rosettes, which later often flow together like a lawn. The lobules of the thallus are white gray to gray and 0.5 to 1 mm wide. The lobes end flat or in lip-shaped straightened soralen, where vegetative dissemination units (soredia) are formed. These "lip sensory" distinguish them from the otherwise very similar Physcia adscendens (which has helmet-like bulges at the lobes). Gray-white fibrils sit at the edges. Fruit bodies (apothecaries) are rarely trained.

Blushing bracket fungi grow in tiers on dead and dying willows, and on other broadleaf trees with less frequency. They are among the few fungi to fruit during winter, providing visual interest to the landscape with their pink and beige surfaces that can at times “blush” to a dark red.

Physcia caesia is a foliose lichen that forms small rosettes, typically measuring 2–3 cm (0.79–1.18 in) across at maturity, though it can reach diameters of up to 7 centimetres (2.8 in). The thallus is pale gray shading to darker gray in the center, and adheres closely to the substrate on which it grows. Its convex lobes are linear, typically measuring 0.5–1.0 mm (0.02–0.04 in) in width, though occasionally as wide as 2 mm (0.08 in). Forms in some areas, including Greenland, can be considerably darker, with a thallus ranging from gray to dark gray; they can also have broader or narrower lobes. The lichen's surface is white-spotted, though this is not always obvious. It has blue-gray soredia, which are piled in round mounds (such aggregations are known as soralia) across the thallus's upper surface. The lower surface is white to brown with short, dark rhizines. Physcia caesia only rarely has apothecia. Where present, these are black discs measuring up to 2 millimetres (0.08 in) across, with prominent thalline margins (which means the thallus extends up around the edges of the apothecia) and a grayish pruinescence. Each ascus contains 8 spores, which are thick-walled and brown, measuring 18–25 μm (0.00071–0.00098 in) x 6–10 μm (0.00024–0.00039 in). Its photobiont is the green algae Trebouxia impressa, a species associated with many Physcia lichens. The lichen's cortex and medulla react positively with potassium hydroxide (K), turning yellow. Cortex and medulla react positively with para-phenylenediamene (Pd) as well, also turning yellow. They produce no reaction with calcium or sodium hypochlorite (bleach – C), nor with KC (potassium hydroxide quickly followed by bleach). Among the substances produced by the lichen are atranorin and zeorin.

The birch polypore has a variety of applications. Its thick skin has been used by barbers as a razor sharpener and as a mount for insect collectors. When dried, this mushroom was also used to carry fire over long distances because it burns slowly. The historical use of birch polypore doesn't stop there; pieces of this mushroom were found being carried by the five-thousand-year-old mummy Ötzi the Iceman.