Articles and field notes
Season diaries, identification pieces and the legal ground rules, written in the field and checked against current British sources.
UK foraging law and a forager's code of conduct
What the law actually says about picking wild mushrooms in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the unwritten rules that keep sites productive.
1 January 2026
IdentificationThe reclassification of the inkcaps
The genus Coprinus was broken apart by DNA work in the early 2000s. Here is what the inkcaps are called now, and why the Shaggy Inkcap kept its name.
20 May 2013
Season diaryLate winter foraging, when the mushrooms are gone
January and February are the lean months. There is still Velvet Shank and Jelly Ear on the wood, and the first hedgerow greens are worth more than most people think.
4 February 2013
Foragers notesHoney fungus: friend of no gardener
Armillaria is the most destructive tree pathogen in British gardens and it is also, with serious caveats, edible.
8 October 2012
Foragers notesFairy rings, and what grows in them
Rings in the lawn are not magic, they are mycelium growing outwards. Two of the mushrooms that make them are worth eating, and one of them is a muscarine poisoning waiting to happen.
15 September 2012
Foragers notesThe Death Cap: the one species to learn first
Amanita phalloides accounts for the overwhelming majority of fatal mushroom poisonings in Europe. Learning it properly is the first thing any British forager should do.
2 October 2011
SafetyNever eat a mushroom you are not sure of
The single rule that everything else on this site is built around, and why an app, a book or a friend's opinion is not enough on its own.
18 September 2011
Season diaryThe year of the hedgehog fungus
Some autumns belong to one species. A season's field notes on Hydnum repandum, and the late flush of winter chanterelles and cauliflower fungus that followed it.
12 November 2010