Fungi

Where is it growing Louise? From the photo it looks like Ramaria Botrytis but the size quoted in Roger Phillips fungi bible is smaller than you state. He also has it as "rare" which makes me wonder if I'm making a correct identification. He says "white at first, becoming tan or ochraceous with pink, red or purplish tips"...Taste and smell pleasant, fruity (this doesn't mean eat it!)

No idea how to eradicate it. Must you? If you can get an expert ID on it the Ramaria Botrytis is edible. But I stress the expert, face to face, or rather face to fungi, ID.....

Might also be a Clavulina?

looks wonderful... if Celestina can't i.d. then there is no chance for me :-( Unless it is causing a problem I'd leave alone.

Really leave it alone ?
It looks so gruesome to me Moon Grower !!!

Cestina, thank you for looking it up, it's growing infront of an Escallonia hedge and 'behind' the herbaceous border, so inbetween the two.

It appears white-cream at first and then turns a mustardy-honey colour.
It doesn't get to stay there long enough for me to say whether it then goes redy-purple !

It doesn't affect any of the surrounding plants, it just appears alongside them, i thought it looked so big and unsightly that it just had to be bad !

Just shows, one persons attractive is anothers gruesome !!!

I've just looked them up and the pictures 'do' look very similar to this, mine seems a bit more dense and tightly packed though.

It doesn't say it's at all a nuisance though, does it ?

Ramaria grows normally in broad-leaved woods....as you can see from the google images it can vary greatly in how it looks http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=ramaria+botrytis+images&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=QHq_StnDGpvsmgPjst3lBg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1
Sorry about the length of the link - don't know how to shrink it on here.
There are over 200 species of Ramaria so hard to identify exactly which it is - if you live in the UK your area will have a fungus recorder who will be glad to know of a rare fungus growing on his patch.

However quite a lot of rare fungi are now becoming common because the mycelium is being brought in on wood chippings from all over the world....

I'd be thrilled to find them in my garden, but as you say, each to his own :-)

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I think it looks great!

Its not just wood chips, either, its multi purpose compost these days, I'm discovering - since they substituted other stuff for the peat content, most of the pots I've done this year have grown a mushroom or three or one kind or another. There does seem to be quite a lot of slightly woody material in the compost though, that's the other thing I've noticed.

I think that is because they have to include the council's green waste in it and many folk, ourselves included, put large branches etc. into. Obviously they are not composting at a high enough temperature to kill the mycelium. We once found a syrette in a bag of multi-purpose compost, how that had got there is anyones guess!

Syrette Moongrower? What on earth is that?

one dose syringe for giving morphine and the like - used in medics field kits.

Well I've never heard that before, syrette - so is that what mine are called really - they're one dose already loaded syringes (though not with morphine, I hasten to add!)

No I think what you are using still looks like a mini syringe this is a small collapsable tube fitted with a needle. You snap off the cover insert and squeeze the tube to administer the drug.

Mine are syringes then (though they're huge - they've changed the design to make them easier and safer to use, in theory - bruise like the devil though and won't fit in a sharps box)