#dontpick

Fungi in the New Forest 🍄

Please look, but don't pick fungi. 

Autumn is also a peak time for fungi. The New Forest is one of the most important sites for fungi in Britain and more than 2,700 different species can be found here. Each autumn they offer up weird and wonderful displays of colour, patterns and shapes and are extremely photogenic.

Often thought of as plants, fungi are viewed by many as closer to animals given their unique way of growing and absorbing food and water from their surroundings rather than making their own using energy from sunlight.

Fungi play a vital role in the health of the forest. Many fungi live on the roots of trees and other plants helping these to absorb more nutrients. In fact, many trees grow less well without fungi. As well as being essential rotters and recyclers, fungi also provide food for some animals and are vital to many invertebrates to enable them to complete their life cycles.

Given this importance of fungi to the rest of the forest we ask that if you are out and about, please to enjoy looking at them but leave them in the ground for others to enjoy. A number of the fungi in the forest are poisonous and some are so rare and vulnerable they’re included in the protected species list making it illegal to pick them – even for scientific reasons.