Ochre Spreading-tooth

More grey skies, which gave me a chance to get plenty of work done as I wasn't in the least tempted to go out. In the late afternoon I took Alex over to see a friend, and on the way back I dropped into Thorpe Wood and had a mooch around in the gloaming. 

I randomly turned over a branch and came across this rather magnificent fungus, which I eventually identified as Ochre Spreading-tooth Steccherinum ochraceum. It's an uncommon resupinate tooth fungus,found occasionally in (mainly) southern parts of Britain and Ireland, but much more common in central and southern mainland Europe. The surface is composed of densely packed spines on which the spores develop. It's saprobic on dead wood, and this was on the underside of a fallen branch of oak. According to the NBN there are very few records of this species in the East Midlands, so I uploaded the data to iRecord,