Fungus Etcetera

Everything's growing apace in the garden. Among so many spring flowers I've been very happy this week to welcome a small patch of  blue Anemone blanda I planted last autumn. All of them have flowered and they are a really heavenly blue, basking under the protection of the tree fern. 

Anemone blanda

The other things that caught my attention  this week were some curious fungi. Since reading Merlin Sheldrake's book Entangled Life about the extraordinary things that fungi are and do, I have been much more interested in the ones I find in my garden - or in other people's gardens come to that. The other day a friend showed me some black conker-sized rounded ones she had spotted on a dead tree stump. They intrigued me so I looked them up. They are Daldina concentrica and apparently common all year round across the UK. 

King Alfred's cakes on an old tree stump

They are also called  King Alfred's Cakes, for obvious reasons as they look just like small burned buns. And they do have an interesting story: their other names are carbon balls or coal fungus because as long ago as the Stone Age they used to be used as firelighters. Once lit they can smoulder gently for a long time and it's possible they were used as a way of transporting fire from place to place. Apparently they don't harm the tree as they only grow on dead wood - in case you were wondering.