1. I went down to Aldershot [Hampshire] on Saturday, but it was too dry and there were only two or three mushrooms [penny buns] around.
On Tuesday I caught the train down after 9.30, so that I could use my freedom pass, but there were lots of people already there with torches, but I was able to find quite a lot. Some people with cars go down and wait for it to get light. Most of the people there were Polish or Italian pensioners; there were two young British men who had a proper basket to put their mushrooms in [Pimlico, London, August 2009].

2. My parents came from Poland after the Second World War and my mother occasionally used certain plants as herbal remedies, etc. … the bolete fungus, Boletus edulis, was gathered and dried for soups/casseroles [Bromley, Kent, April 1991].

Images: main, collected on Tooting Common, London Borough of Wandsworth, November 2014; upper inset, Seville, Spain, November 2018; lower inset, stall in Borough Market, London Borough of Southwark, October 2015.