I've seen quite a few weird and wonderful fungi in the UK and been able to identify many of them through my vast tomes of British mushrooms and toadstools but these were not able to help me with an odd fungus I saw in abundance on the Portuguese island of Madeira.
I thought this particular species of fungus quite closely resembled a walnut in shape and colour although I wasn't tempted to eat it.
I thought that it would be easy to track down the name of this fungus online, especially since it was so widespread in Madeira, but it seemed particularly elusive to track down. By looking for "Madeira fungo" on google.pt I managed to find something which appeared very similar to that which I had seen myself whilst on holiday. Locally it is known as "madre-louro" (mother bay) and its Latin name is Laurobasidium Lauri. You won't find it here in the UK, which made this particular encounter very exciting for me!
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