Martin's mushrooms

Actually they're toadstools, or at least I think they are. We're heading rapidly for Keats' season of mists, mellow fruitfulness - and fungi. There are lots of trees round us and up the toadstools pop at this time of year; incredible that such large objects grow at such speed.

Specially compared with lichen. Penny and I are devoted members of Leeds Phil & Lit and we're always attending lectures on everything you can imagine. This week it was Prof Mark Seaward from Bradford who has spent much of his life examining them. The talks are almost always very cheery, accessible and accompanied by props and this was no exception. Mark brought along a wondrous range of health, beauty and other products in which bits of lichen play a supposedly magical but probably spurious part.

This is a shame because lichen grows at such a snail's pace, and although there seem to be carpets of it everywhere, mankind can alter that double quick. Anyway, here are three fungi which I will spend the weekend leisurely trying to identify in my toadstool Bible, which I love because of the thrilling skull and crossbones symbols by the ones - only a handful in the UK luckily - that can kill you.