Fungi Study on the Lickey Hills

A recent study of the fungi present on the Lickey Hills, carried out by local retired medical scientist and LHS committee member, David Gompertz, has identified 185 species across various locations. David has kindly given his permission for us to publish his findings on our website which includes a detailed map to show where each species has been located.

AS WITH ALL FUNGI, DO NOT PICK TO EAT UNLESS YOU ARE WITH PROVEN AND EXPERIENCED FORAGER.

Notes from the author, David Gompertz

These fungus records come from various walks on the Lickey Hills in the autumn / early winter from 2017 to 2021 inclusive. The records give the grid reference of the first finding. It should be noted that later findings may be at other sites and even more extensive.

Fungi are not always predictable in their appearance. The identifications are the best I can do. I used a range of general and detailed field guides. Nearly all the identifications were dependent on looking at the fungus spores. This included using a microscope for spore analysis… ie size, shape and smoothness. It is possible that some identifications are not exact. With new DNA technology, fungi are being reclassified and now may be under new names in recent books or on the internet. Look at the fungi… enjoy seeing them, photograph them, but only collect the minimum needed for an identification

About David Gompertz - Retired medical scientist

I spent 14 years as voluntary warden of a Wildlife Trust nature reserve in Hertfordshire. I tried to learn and record as many species groups as possible but my main interests in autumn and winter months were the fungi of the Reserve. There I had help with identification from county fungus experts. I moved to Barnt Green in 2017 and for the next 5 years I recorded the fungi found while walking on the Lickey Hills .

About Mike Burden - Computer Programmer with my Web developer hat on

After meeting David and discovering his extensive work investigating fungi on the Lickeys Hills I convinced him to let me present the work on the LHS website. This web page is a catalogue of David's Work. Inspired by David, who has helped me to understand how to identify fungi and use a microscope, I hope to add to this piece of work myself over the next couple of years although my additions will be modest compared to David's input.

Before retirement I spent several decades in IT as a developer/database specialist. I'm currenlty playing with Rasberry Pi and Micro controllers (Variaiations of Arduino's) investigating camera's and various sensors

The fungi can be viewed in three different formats by selecting the following tabs:

Fungus Map: Location of fungi displayed on Google maps.
Hover over markers to see Scientific name followed by common name. Click on markers to see the fungus details. Use filter to limit the fungi being displayed. The text entered will be used to filter the fungi displayed by matching the text against the Scientific name or the common name. Click apply button to apply the filter.

Key to map pointers below. All map pointer are a species of fungus found on the Lickey hills.

Pointer to fungi. This uses a 6 digit coordinate so is accurate to approximately 3 meters.

The locations of these fungi are only accurate to (100m²) denoted by a red square under the pointer. As this area may contan multiple fungi each pointer will be offset from other pointers within the red square to reduce overlaping.

If the pointer contains an X then no picture is available

If the pointer is capped with a world icon the fungus was found on the Lickey Hills but no photograph was taken. The image provided was a photograph taken elsewehere by David.

List of Fungi: List of fungi displayed in a tabular format.

Click on a row to select a fungus. Selected rows are highlighted in grey. Once selected returning to the Map tab will show all the selected fungi.

Picture column contains one of the following icons which can be clicked to view the fungus.

The image(s) available are of the actual fungus found on the Lickey hills at the time and place

The fungus was found on the Lickey Hills but no photograph was taken. The image provided was a photograph taken elsewehere by David.

Fungi by Picture: A view of the fungi by large icons.

Click on icon to see details and full size picture. Click on name to select Individual Fungus. Selected fungi are highlighted in grey and can be seen on fungi map.

Note: when using the last two tabs selecting a fungus will remove any existing selection and the selected item will toggle between selected (grey) and unselected. To select multiple rows press the control key while clicking. This will prevent the existing selections from being removed.

Note 2 (Slime moulds) : Six of the fungi found are Slime moulds. These fungi while small can be quite spectaculer to photograph. To identify them and allow them to be found in filters, I have suffixed the common name with '*Slime mould'.

Sientific Name	Date Found	Habitat	Location	Common Name	OS location	Confidence	Identifide by	Picture

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