Frosty buttercups and velvet

Winter is not a dead season.  A bright sunny morning stroll through frosty Filnore Woods provides lots of opportunities for spotting wildlife stuff.

Next year's buttercups are growing merrily and a bit of frost shows up their distinctive leaf shape.

And growing on a dead tree trunk, here is a cluster of Velvet Shank fungi.

This is one fungus species that keeps its toadstools even in frosty weather.  It's called the velvet shank because although the cap is orange, the stem has a brown velvety covering.  Its scientific name Flammulina velutipes means 'litttle flames with velvet feet'. 

Tidying up the world, as fungi do, this species is one that decomposes a lot of dead elms following Dutch Elm Disease.  The clump shown here though, was on a dead Silver Maple stem in the old tree nursery (see the map on the leaflet - black menu bar at top of blog).