Entries by Gavin

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Litter in the coutryside rant

Some of you already know how I feel about litter in our beautiful countryside, so this litter rant won’t come as too much of a surprise to you. I went out for a quick walk in the Lee Valley Park this lunchtime and the litter was appalling. It was only a short walk, out and […]

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Sneaky Chickweed

If you read all there is on the internet about Chickweed, you could be forgiven for expecting to trip over the stuff every few minutes. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky, but apart from having a tiny patch pointed out to me in January, I’ve seen none of it. Chickweed spotted On my way to Mudchute […]

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London Plane Tree (Platanus × acerifolia)

Whilst the London Plane tree is of no use when foraging for food and drink; And as far as I’m aware, not especially useful for bushcraft; given that it accounts for probably half of the large trees in London, I think it’s worth being able to identify, if only for the purpose of elimination. Environmentally […]

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Pesky Alexanders

I’ve been on the lookout for pesky Alexanders for a while now. Mostly because I’ve read about how widespread they are, and about how they came to the UK with the Romans as a food stuff. Anyway, I’ve had a few moments where I’ve thought I have them, but then I’m not sure. The difficulty […]

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Identifying Trees in Winter

Please note: This article was originally posted on www.totallywilduk.co.uk Identifying trees in Winter is hard. It isn’t too bad in Spring, Summer and Autumn; But during the winter, when there are no leaves, flowers or fruits on show, it’s pretty awful. Why trees? What has that got to do with foraging? The obvious reason is […]

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Tree Fungus in Epping Forest

On one of my now frequent visits to Epping Forest, I had no intentions of foraging, just out for exercise; However, I just happened to come across quite a lot of tree fungus in Epping forest this time. Both easily identifiable, and (at least for me) unidentifiable. Birch Polypore So the first thing I cam […]

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Turkey Tail Fungus

On a recent trip to Epping Forest, I came across some bracket fungus growing on an old log pile. I didn’t know what it was at the time, so I took some pictures with the intention of identifying it later. So here I am and it looks like it was Turkey Tail Fungus, one of […]