The fungi of Fryerning Churchyard
Where does an interest in fungi begin? With me it started in the late 1960s, when Collins published
one of the first field guides on the subject. The authors defy my memory but it was, I believe, a
translation of a European guide and probably covered no more than three per cent of the British
fungal flora. Armed with this book and Richard Mabey's Food for Free, I proceeded to sample the
often subtle flavours of around thirty species over the next few years, a culinary escapade which, in
retrospect, makes me go a bit pale round the gills each time I think of it! At that time I assumed that
if you stayed clear of Amanita and Clitocybe you were fairly safe from anything worse than a bit of
indigestion. By such reasoning I discovered that I am one of the relatively few people who can eat
Agaricus xanthoderma without any unfortunate side effects. As the years passed, the quality of the
field guides improved and so did my knowledge - and wisdom. It soon became apparent that fungi
are far harder to identify than I had imagined and I promptly stopped eating all but the commonest
varieties!
In the early 1980s the books of Oliver Rackham opened my eyes to the rich history of my local
landscape - the Writtle Forest - and since that time my life-long interest in the natural world has
increasingly been directed towards the fascinating relationship between human and natural history
in this area. At Fryerning, I began recording the fungi from the late 1980s onwards but it has always
been a fairly casual affair - based on visits at two or three week intervals - and it was only during the
autumns of 2000 and 2001 when, with this article in mind, I began visiting the site every few days,
that its true potential became apparent.
Lack of adequate microscopic keys has often been a hindrance to accurate identification for the
amateur mycologist in the past - although that situation is now rapidly improving - and my attempts
at preserving specimens using the radiators or airing cupboard have usually only succeeded in
flooding the house with unsavoury odours! Not that they discomfort mE as I have no sense of smell
- a trait inherited from my father - and this has been a further handicap to fungi identification as
I've always had to borrow other peoples noses! This has taught me that any aroma less pungent
than that of garlic or rotting manure is open to all manner of interpretation by different olfactory
ducts. Give a single specimen to six different volunteers and they will come up with six different
approximations of what it smells like, none of which match the likely candidates in the key. On no
account, either, must you give any helpful hints as to its smell. If you were to suggest that a fungus
has the aroma of a pickled Cormorant most people would happily agree that it docs, Either to please
you or simply make you go away! With some fungi you simply have to admit defeat and wait for
them to reappear another day, when you can join the fray refreshed. Thus the following systematic
list is far from complete. It does, though, indicate the potential value of this small churchyard (and
doubtless others like it) and its compilation has been great fun; which, of course, is what natural
history is all about.
Systematic List
The following list comprises all species identified between 1988 and 2001. Although grassland is
the principal habitat in the churchyard many fungi are closely associated with the various trees that
grow there. This fungal association is most pronounced with the Scots Pine Pinus sylvestris that
ring the church (reputedly planted in the late eighteenth century by one Samuel Perry, churchwarden
at that time) and with Silver Birch Betula pendula, several trees of which are to be found on the
margins of the graveyard. It has also been noted with the three mature Yews Taxus baccata growing
close to the church, the Scots and Corsican Pines Pinus nigra ssp. laricio var. maritima in the
Victorian extension and the Pedunculate Oaks Quercus robur that grow on the roadside embankment.
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 19 (2002)
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