The mushroom season is nearing its end, but mushrooms will continue until Christmas and beyond if the hard frosts keep at bay. I have written about many fungi in these pages, all of them front-runners in the gourmand stakes. This time, however, it is the rank outsiders and also-rans. My fanciful racing metaphors do fail rather, however, as some of these unfancied species are well worth an each-way bet.
First in the parade ring are the waxcaps. These are extraordinarily bright fungi, running their own rainbow of white, brown, yellow, scarlet, crimson, green, purple and pink. Few are edible and many are rare, so care must be taken when collecting for the table. I restrict myself to three relatively common species: the snowy waxcap, scarlet waxcap and meadow waxcap, but…