At Ackworth School, the pupils in the junior school enjoy their “Forest Schools” sessions in a small area of woodland within the school grounds. The gardeners have created a ring of seats for them by embedding sections of log into the ground.
Infected log
This morning, I noticed a colourful a colourful fungus growing on some of the logs. Trawling through my expensive books on fungi did not produce an identification but a post on Facebook drew a suggested ID within minutes.
Silverleaf Fungus (Chondrostereum purpureum)
The suggestion, which looks good, is that the fungus is silverleaf fungus (Chondrostereum purpureum). I’ve heard the name before because of the disease – silver leaf – that it causes on cherry trees. One or two ornamental cherry trees growing in the school grounds have died recently, so it is possible that the logs are from those trees.
Silverleaf fungus (Chondrostereum purpureum)