Come on, baby, light my fire

With its glossy orange cap, the ‘little flame with a velvet foot’ is a colourful addition to winter’s mushroom bounty, but don’t confuse it for a funeral bell, warns John Wright

Illustration by Kateryna Kyslitska

THE depth of winter is not usually considered to be the best time to pick mushrooms, rather, very nearly the worst, being beaten only by March. Yet, they can be found. Some species linger beyond Christmas in milder parts of the country and I have seen both field blewits and trumpet chanterelles in January, the latter species also going by the telling name of ‘winter chanterelle’. Sometimes, even the summer mushrooms appear, particularly those that grow on wood: oyster mushrooms, for example. There are, however, diminishingly few winter specialists. The velvet shank is one such, seldom making an appearance outside the winter months. It is a splendid sight, often growing in massive tufts on dead or dying broad-leaved trees. The caps are a bright orange, darkening in the middle and 1in–2in…

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Country Life (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 12, 2025

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