Fungi again
The narrow road leading to the church in Findon is lined on both sides with trees and on one old beech tree stump I found some intriguing fungi, which as usual I haven’t managed to identify. Of course I tried some small samples out in the dyepot but sadly, as the photo below shows, the results were not particularly worthwhile.
These samples were all dyed using an alum mordant.
These fine specimens looked wonderful growing all around the tree stump and gave the colour shown on the left-hand skein (plus a pinch of iron) and the centre skein.
These were lying on the grass and looked quite sinister. They gave the colour shown on the right-hand skein.
I think this might be a specimen of Hoof Fungus Fomes fomentarius. It certainly resembles a horse’s hoof and I didn’t want to disturb it for the dyepot.
Might the upper fungus in this photo be Ganoderma applanatum or Artist’s fungus? Whatever these fungi may be, they looked too attractive to sacrifice for the dyepot.
A few days later my husband pointed out some mushrooms growing on our front lawn, which I think are probably a species of Hygrocybe. These proved more useful in the dye pot and gave a pretty shade of yellow on an alum mordant. I’m afraid I forgot to photograph the mushrooms before I used them in the dyepot, so the photo below of the dyed skein shows the used mushrooms from the dyebath, plus one fresh mushroom I managed to find. I should also add that the depth of yellow achieved was actually considerably deeper than it appears in the photo.