Last week, Superfrenchie informed us that there were many cows in Normandy. We rejoiced to hear this. (The cows were pretty.) This week, our French agriculture expert lets us in on another development: Normandy also boasts exuberant fungal growth.

You know the drill by now: 'shroom experts of h2g2, help us figure out what these are.

This reminds the Editor of a field trip at university. The Biology Department bussed us out to a state park in beautiful western Pennsylvania. We spent a glorious fall day at our assigned tasks: measuring 'old fields', surveying trees, enumerating plant life, etc. My job, assigned by my TA¹, was to collect mushrooms. By the end of the day, I had a startling variety of fungi. We took our samples home to our city campus. The TA had me arrange my 'shrooms in a tray, and put them in a drying cabinet to dessicate.

Alas, my TA was not as knowledgeable as I had hoped. She didn't realise that, when drying mushrooms, it is important not to lay them on a dissecting tray. The wax in the tray melted, and my collection was lost to posterity. Such frustrations are not uncommon in Science. I was left with nothing but my memories and my notes.

Small wonder I became a writer, rather than a research scientist.

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