For many years I had
been finding fairly well rotted wood that was stained a rather attractive shade of green, see image below at left. The staining
is actually a pigment that is contained within the vegetative part of a fruiting body, the mycelium.
The fruiting body, the mushroom,
only appears after hard rains and is very small, being approximately ¼ inch (6mm) in diameter, the stalk being somewhat less
than ¼ inch.
In England,
the staining was taken advantage of and was used in conjunction with other types of wood to make wood veneer.
The veneer was then used to make decorative objects such as tea caddies, bowls,sewing thimbles, needle cases, small
tables, writing desks etc. This took place in the town of Tunbridge Wells and
became known as “Tunbridge Ware”.
Please click on the images
below to view larger images.
