Rare pink and purple fungi discovered by volunteers

Graveyards, sheep farms and garden lawns are among the hundreds of new sites for rare pink and purple fungi discovered by citizen scientists.

- Helena Horton Environment reporter

The charity Plantlife has enlisted 850 volunteers to look for waxcaps in their local areas so that scientists can get data from spaces such as private gardens, to which they have not previously had access.

The volunteers found 300 new locations of the pink waxcap (Por-polomopsis calyptriformis), which is classed as “vulnerable” on the global IUCN red list of threatened species, and 18 new locations of the vibrant violet coral Clavaria zollingeri.