Working in the allotment part of the meadows today, I accidentally disturbed a purple fungus growing around the base of the autumn fruiting raspberries – the Amethyst Deceiver:

What a wonderful name and what a wonderful colour. In fact, I was wearing a coat of the same shade:

The name apparently comes from the fact that when this fungus is weathered or old, its colour fades and it becomes difficult to identify. It is a common and edible fungus, although it has a rather alarming ability to absorb arsenic from the soil and can accumulate a high concentration of it. So probably best to give it a miss, actually.

Because there are not a great many mature trees, Autumn here does not bring large quantities of different types of fungus and so I was pleased to see these lovely ones today.