Once the summer weather breaks the soil and air becomes damp with autumn rain allowing Fungi to emerge without drying out. Some species can be seen all year round but the abundance and variety that are displaying now last only until the first hard frost.
Fungi are neither plants nor animals - they are decomposers of organic matter, surviving underground or within plants all year but emerging as mushrooms or toadstools in order to reproduce.
Some of these fruiting bodies are palatable to humans, whilst most are not and a few are poisonous.
Collecting mushrooms is forbidden in the park as doing so will diminish the population within the ecosystem.
