IT LOOKS like a paler version of Oyster Fungus, which you find
growing in clusters on stumps and fallen logs in the autumn but
Branching Oyster Fungus, Pleurotus cornucopiae, appears earlier
in the year, and can be seen growing on elm, oak and beech
stumps and logs from spring to autumn. These were growing on a
fallen Silver Birch in Coxley Woods between the two dams. In his
field guide Marcel Bon warns that although edible it’s ‘not of
high quality’ and says that the white flesh has ‘a strong smell,
sometimes rather unpleasant’. Michael Jordan describes the odour
as ‘slight, of aniseed’. A related species, the Pale Oyster, is
grown commericially, as is the Oyster. Horn of Plenty The
species name of the Branching Oyster, cornucopiae, refers to the
mythical horn of plenty. In specialist books on fungi this
funnel shape is referred to as infundibuliform. In anatomy, a
infundibulum is a funnel-shaped cavity or structure. In Kurt
Vonnegut’s 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan, one man (and his dog)
gets trapped in a ‘