Fun guys, and girls, will enjoy trips to Kew Gardens this autumn as their edible plants festival turns a seasonal corner, focusing on mushrooms and pumpkins.
As the Incredibles Festival, which celebrates edible plants, continues into autumn, visitors to the Royal Botanical Gardens can take part in a plethora of plant-based activities, including a magical mushroom learning experience and the chance to marvel at a fungi sculpture.
To mark UK Fungus Day on October 13, the gardens will host a behind the scenes tour of the Kew’s fungarium, which holds the largest collection of dried fungi in the world including samples collected by Charles Darwin during his voyage on the HMS Beagle.
Dr Bryn Dentinger, head of Kew’s fungarium, says: “I am delighted about the festival’s focus on fungi, they are too often overlooked.”
The fungi expert emphasises the timeliness of the festival’s focus, as the first official Red List for fungi in Britain was recently published.
He says it is a momentous time for the conservation of fungi in the UK.
Dr Dentinger says: “This event is an opportunity to raise awareness about their importance to the health of the planet, their role as the hidden benefactors of most edible plants, and to celebrate their amazing, and often delicious, diversity.”
Incredibles: New Activities for Autumn; Kew Gardens; October 5 to November 4; Various prices, for details visit kew.org.
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