Autumn Fungi in the Woods

Pembrokeshire has two things fungi like: very old woodland that has never been cleared, and old grassland that has never been fertilised. Both are unusual in modern Britain and both are here.

Ty Canol, on the northern flank of the Preselis near Nevern, is the headline — a national nature reserve of stunted, twisted sessile oaks growing over moss-covered boulders, with one of the richest lichen floras in Europe and a strong autumn fungal season. It looks like a set. Pengelli Forest near Dinas Cross is the largest block of ancient oak woodland in west Wales. Minwear and the Canaston woods on the Cleddau are easier walking and produce plenty.

Waxcaps are the other speciality: small, glossy, absurdly coloured mushrooms — scarlet, parrot green, pink, orange — that grow in old unimproved pasture, churchyards and dune slacks. Church grounds are a good bet, and so are the dunes behind Freshwater West and Broomhill Burrows.

On picking things. Do not eat anything on the strength of a phone app or a photograph in a book. Several deadly species here look very like edible ones, and liver failure is not a food-poisoning story you get to tell afterwards. Foraging is not permitted on nature reserves at all, and picking should always be light where it is allowed. Go on a guided foray if you want to learn properly — several run in the county each autumn.

Timing. A week after warm, heavy rain is the moment. Take a torch for the woodland floor; it is dark in there by mid-afternoon in November.