October under the birches

I walk the same three stands of birch every autumn, about forty minutes apart along the same river, and I have kept a notebook for four seasons. This is the fourth. It was a dry September and then a very wet first week of October, and the difference between those two weeks was the whole story.

Nothing at all through September. The ground under the birches was hard and the moss had gone pale. Then three days of rain, a warm weekend, and on the Tuesday afterwards the first stand had eleven fruiting bodies in a rough ring around the largest tree. By the Friday there were thirty.

The second stand, which sits lower and holds water, came up two days later and lasted a week longer. The third, on a slope, produced almost nothing this year. It has been the poorest of the three every year, and I think it is simply too well drained.

I am not going to tell you what I picked or what I did with it. That is between me and the identification guide I have read more times than any other book I own. What I will say is that if you are new to this, walk the same ground for two seasons before you touch anything, and read the staff post on pantherina before you read anything else on this site.