Last Thursday 13 November morning, the local enthusiasts of Rye u3a wildlife group enjoyed a pleasant morning in the cemetery searching for and identifying the wide variety of fungi to be found there.
We gathered at first round the stump of the old felled cedar where the uncommon cauliflower fungus (Sparassis crispa) has continued to thrive annually even after the controversial felling of the tree itself.
Imagine my dismay to find two days later that very stump, which had other fungi growing from it, had been reduced to an unsightly pile of wood chippings in the middle of the cemetery. Gone was the cauliflower fungus and other associated fungi.
I fail to see the purpose of this pointless act of "official" environmental vandalism. Even if the stump itself was diseased it hardly constituted, in its low elevation, a danger to the public and did not warrant wholesale destruction.
The fungi we see in the damp days of autumn are merely the fruiting bodies of fungal threads called hyphae that are constantly making their way through the soil and simply enabling all life as we know it. It is wise that the business end of fungi is hidden from view underground so that they can continue their essential work unhindered.
I think we are owed an explanation for this disfigurement in the middle of our cemetery which, although some perhaps would not have it so, is a positive oasis for wildlife of all kinds.
There are not just the many different species of fungi, such as the uncommon ballerina waxcap, but also there are the ravens that roost in its tall trees, the colourful lichens that adorn the headstones and minute micro-moths that form mines within the decaying leaves in autumn in green patches on otherwise expired fallen leaves.
