Fungi and Dragonflies
I visited Scadbury Park Nature Reserve on a rainy day and i was immediately surprised by the vast amount of King Alfred's Cake fungi ( Daldinia concentrica ). The name of this fungus comes from the legend of when Alfred the Great was hiding in the countryside from the Danes in 870. He was put in charge of watching cakes in the oven and fell asleep, leaving the cakes to burn. The fungus resembles a burnt cake. They also have the name 'Cramp Balls' in reference to the belief in medieval times that carrying this fungus around with you would ward off cramps. There are plenty of ash trees in the woods here, shooting up into the sky like antenna. King Alfred's Cake are a fungus associated exclusively with ash trees and that was clear to see in these woods, nearly every fallen limb or ash tree itself was covered in colonies of the fungi. King Alfred's Cake is a saprobe fungus, this means it feeds on dead and decaying wood. Saprobic fungi have an important role in retu
