Your Wildlife Window on the World Wide Web

Over 2200 illustrated identification guides to > 720 Wildflower pages; > 820 Fungi pages; > 86 British and European Birds; > 50 native British Trees; > 200 butterflies, moths, mayflies, hoverflies, dragonflies and other Insects; > 55 Fish species; > Britain's native Reptiles and Amphibians; > A large selection of Mammals including many Bats.

If Winter comes can Spring be far behind?

Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote those memorable words in his Ode to the West Wind. Shelley's message is sometimes generalised as saying, 'If your opresent situation seems unbearable don't give up; hang on in there and things will get better.' Well, welive in hope...

But those of us who enjoy wildflowers don't have to wait for spring to arrive; winter also has a few floral features worth looking out for, and Winter Heliotrope Petasites fragrans is certainly one of these. Pale pink drooping flowers in a loose raceme can look rather bedraggled when viewed from a distance. To enjoy the full beauty of these turn-of-the-year tassels you need to get up close and personal - as you can see on our web page about this precocious member of the daisy family...

Winter Heliotrope is most common on damp disturbed grassland such as roadside verges.

Spore Prints - where Science and Art collide (and collude)

When you want to know exactly which kind of mushoom, toadstool or other kind of fungus you have found, visual appearance (macroscopic characters, to use the technical term) are often not enough to provide species-level identification. Then you need to do some scientific detective work. Finding out the colour of the spores is the first crucial step in in the process, and for this you need to make a spore print. It's easy! Just follow our simple online guide to making spore prints...

Oh, and by the way: spore prints can be very attractive artwork, too.

Microscopy for Amateur Mycologists

It's amazing how much more you can learn about fungi if you have access to a microscope. Our no-jargon Online Guide to Mushroom Microscopy has all the essential information about choosing and using a compound microscope, selecting chemical stains, preparing slides etc to help you get started.

There are also examples of the microscopic 'characters' cited in identification keys. More details...

Focus on Ascomycetes

Asci of the Eyelash Fungus, Scutellaria scutellata

Ascomycetes are fascinating, especially when viewed with a microscope. Here the spores of the Eyelash Fungus Scutellaria scutellata can be seen packed in sets of eight into the asci tubes. The same image in higher magnification can be seen on our Eyelash Fungus page.

Pat O'Reilly's book Fascinated by Fungi contains a very useful introduction to fungal microscopy.

Blue is not a colour normally associated with mushrooms, but there are a few striking blue species. Pictured here is one that makes itself obvious in another way too: the Aniseed Funnel Clitocybe odora can be found by 'following your nose'! See our Sortable Fungi Index for pictures and identification details for more than 770 fascinating fungi species.

Note on terminology

We use the term wildflowers where some people still write wild flowers as two words; however, whether you prefer wildflowers or wild flowers we are sure you will find many flower species of interest in our wildflower pages. Similarly with fungi: some people call all edible fungi mushrooms, using the term toadstools to denote inedible of poisonous fungi. Others reserve the term mushroom for Agaricus species such as field mushrooms. We use the term mushroom to describe any cap-and-stem fungi, whereas brackets, crusts, puffballs and other non-mushroom-shaped types of fungi are referred to simply as fungi. To many people, wildlife means animals such as birds, mammals and insects. Are wildflowers (or wild flowers) wildlife? They are living things, and part of Nature; we therefore use wildlife to imply all living creatures, whether animals (including mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, amphibians, fishes etc), plants such as wildflowers, trees, mosses and other 'lower plants' as well as fungi, lichens and slime moulds.