Bearded Tooth (Hericium erinaceus)

A Bearded Tooth fungus
in all its majestic glory

The Bearded Tooth fungus is perhaps the most impressive of all New Forest fungi, for its pale, cushion-like fruiting bodies, sometimes larger than footballs, are draped in long, crowded, pendulous, icicle-like, spore bearing spines so distinctive that they have earned for it multiple common names - such as Bearded Tooth, bear’s head, hedgehog fungus, lion’s mane, monkey head, old man’s beard, satyr’s beard, sheep’s head and tree hedgehog.

Found primarily in late summer and autumn growing from wounds on the trunks and large diameter branches of living and dead, standing and fallen broad-leaved trees, particularly beech trees, Bearded Tooth distribution in the UK is primarily southerly with the New Forest's ancient, unenclosed woodlands considered to be a stronghold.

Even here, though, the species is rarely encountered and internationally is considered to be of conservation concern across its European range - in 2003 it was red-listed in 13 of the 23 European countries in which it had been recorded.

Bearded Tooth fungi are edible when young, but it would surely be sacrilegious to cut down such a fine species purely for the pleasure of sampling the taste. And in any case, unauthorised collection of these wild fruit bodies in the UK is prohibited by law.

Warning: refer to a good, comprehensive fungus field guide to confirm identification, and only eat those species known without any doubt whatsoever to be edible - people have died after eating certain poisonous specimens.

References:
Mushrooms and other Fungi of Great Britain and Europe - Roger Phillips
The Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain and North-western Europe - Marcel Bon
Fungi of Britain and Europe - Stefan Buczacki and John Wilkinson
The MacDonald Encyclopedia of Mushrooms and Toadstools - Giovanni Pacioni
Fungi of the New Forest: A Mycota - Edited by Gordon Dickson and Ann Leonard
A Passion for Mushrooms - Antonio Carluccio
Grid Map for records of Bearded Tooth - National Biodiversity Network Gateway