Big Ben the Brown Birch Bolet - Day 27

I visited Big Ben today at his secret location but was not hopeful of his survival. Unfortunately, I was not wrong and found him in a sad state as he had been decomposing for about three days rejoining the rich birch forest floor from whence he came.

Next year there will be more bolets growing on the rich mossy floor where he stood, and hopefully we are still around to collect them. In doing so we might also identify when the season commences in Ireland or at the very least in our little birch forest.

There were no bolets to be found today and it is quite clear the season finished with a final fruiting flourish commencing about three weeks ago. We also noticed over the last two months that there were periods of strong growth and periods of very little growth. Is there a growth cycle? From what we have seen there clearly is.

We found that the big birch bolet or leccinum scabrum, and there appear to be a number of sub species in this family, grew to full size in about 24 days. However, the smaller or more fragile varieties like Bertie obviously have a shorter life span. This is quite amazing when you consider the very fast growth rate of other mushrooms and I have already referred to the dynamic growth of coprinus comatus or shaggy ink cap.

For now we have a small stock of dried mushrooms to flavour risottos and pastas or a richly flavoured scrambled egg.