Fungi & a Slime Mould – Lower Wood (Norfolk Wildlife Trust), Ashwellthorpe – 5th October 2025

In the first week of October 2025 we went to Lower Wood at Ashwellthorpe.

Finding slime moulds is as much about serendipity as it is about knowing where to look. Over time, the daughter & I have developed a feel for the specific level of wood decay that seems optimal for slime moulds – at Strumpshaw Fen, there are a number of cut or fallen trunks that we know where we will find these curious organisms on. But as these hosts (sadly) eventually crumble away, newer, more intact wood reaches that optimal level of decomposition to take their place.

The serendipity is that chance moment when – without even looking – you find a slime mould right at your feet, partially hidden within the leaf litter!

So it was when we spotted these fungi fruiting bodies on a mossy fallen trunk – they have an Armillaria cepistipes feel about them.

https://www.mykoweb.eu/fungi/armillaria-cepistipes

At our feet were consolidating white plasmodia still with networks of plasmodial veins.

The MycoKey ID tool overwhelmingly suggests that the fruiting body below is Xerocomellus cisalpinus – the bluefoot bolete. The pore structure is wonderfully compelling!

https://boletales.com/genera/xerocomus/x-cisalpinus/

And more compelling fungal structure with this convoluted fruiting body that I haven’t been able to identify.

It’s endlessly fascinating to me that the morphology of young fungi appear utterly different to their more mature forms. These vibrant purple ovoid caps…

…mature to a paler lilac form – a wider cap with a distinct umbo at the centre.

Running my photos above through MycoKey’s ID tool and cross referencing with First Nature – these are likely the deadly poisonous Inocybe geophylla var. lilacina – the lilac fibrecap.