This plant was incorrectly identified for it's location in Brickfields Country Park, however the information is correct as King Alfred's cakes - Daldinia concentrica. This page has been left on the Brickfields Park site to maintain any links that point to it from elsewhere on the web.

King Alfred's cakes - Daldinia concentrica
Also known as - Cramp balls, Carbon balls, Coal fungus

This plant is poisonous.

A hard, inedible ball-shaped fungus initially reddish-brown in colour becoming a shiny black as it matures. If cut open the body of the fungus is a purple colour with dark concentric rings according to the age of the specimen. Usually seen most often on Ash and Beech but also on Oak as in the case of our specimen, it can be found in Europe and North America in wooded areas on rotting wood and downed trees. The fruiting body has no stipe being in gregarious clumps attached to its host by a broad, flat area underneath the fruits body, the spore-bearing surface is the outside, spores leave a darker spore print area of wood around the fungus. Typically 2-8cm (0.8-3.2in) across, but several may merge to form a much larger compound growth. Appearing mid summer to autumn, however old dried out bodies sometimes will be found.

"Cramp Balls" is an old name referring back to a time when the plant was carried around in a persons pocket as a cure for cramp. The common name "King Alfred's cakes" derives from a popular story about King Alfred fleeing a battle took refuge in an old woman's house. The woman, unaware he was the king, left him in charge of some cakes in the oven, he fell asleep, and the cakes burned. The old woman scolded him for being lazy, later she was sorry about having "raked him over the coals"" when she found out he was the King!.

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