This guide covers what you can still look for between November and February: a few green leaves and mushrooms on dead wood, how to tell two evergreen conifers apart, plus a note on rose hips and sloes. Common chickweed can be found all year round except under snow, after a severe frost or in very dry weather. Velvet shank keeps fruiting through the winter. The guide also names the features that help you rule out lookalikes.
Common chickweed (Stellaria media) seems to prefer open woodland but also grows in gardens, parks, waste ground and field edges. Its key feature is the stem: a single line of tiny hairs runs down one side. The small white flowers have five petals, each split so deeply that they look like ten.
Hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) can be found all year and is abundant in the UK. Look for it on bare soil, in thin grass, in cracks in paths and on walls. Its small, rounded leaflets grow in opposite pairs along the leaf stem, with a single, usually larger leaflet at the end.
The pimpernels look very similar to chickweed. Their flowers are yellow, red, blue or pink. None of them has white flowers like chickweed. None of them has the line of hairs along the stem that marks common chickweed.
Wild Food UK also names spurge (Euphorbia) as a lookalike to avoid. Check the line of hairs and the white, deeply split petals on every plant you pick, not just on the first one, and leave any plant with coloured flowers or a hairless stem.
Dog rose (Rosa canina) fruit ripens around September and October. It carries red, oval hips of 15 to 20 mm in small clusters. Each hip contains many hairy seeds. Look for dog rose in hedgerows, along woodland edges and in scrub.
Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) is identified in winter by its black, spiny twigs with leaf buds along the spines. Its purple fruits are sloes, and birds feast on them in autumn.
The Woodland Trust advises wearing a thick pair of gloves when picking sloes.
Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) keeps its evergreen needles all year round. The needles are blue green, slightly twisted and grow in pairs on short side shoots.
Yew (Taxus baccata) also keeps its evergreen needles all year round. Its needles grow in two rows along the twig, and underneath each one has a raised central vein. They are dark green above and green grey below. Yew can be used as a hedging plant and is common in churchyards.
According to the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), yew needles and chewed seeds contain taxines. After chewing needles or seeds, nausea, vomiting, visual disturbances, dilated pupils, heart rhythm disorders and impaired consciousness can occur.
Never rely on a single matching feature to tell the two apart.
Velvet shank (Flammulina velutipes) fruits from autumn through winter into early spring and is fairly common throughout Britain and Ireland. It grows on stumps and trunks of dead broadleaf trees, especially beech. The orange caps are usually darker towards the centre and slimy in wet weather. The stem is tough and covered in a fine velvety down, usually pale near the cap and often brown towards the base. Its spore print is white.
Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) fruits in summer, autumn and early winter in Britain and Ireland. In parts of southern Europe it can sometimes be found through to January or February. It grows on dying or dead standing broadleaf trees, particularly beech and oaks. The stem is short or missing and has no ring. The spore print is white or, more often, pale lilac grey.
Jelly ear (Auricularia auricula-judae) can be seen throughout the year. It grows mainly on dead and decaying elder wood. The lobed fruitbody is tan brown with a purple tinge on the outside, covered in a fine greyish down.
Funeral bell (Galerina marginata) grows on stumps, dead trunks and fallen branches of conifers and sometimes of broadleaf trees. First Nature gives its season as summer and autumn. The stem has a fragile pale ring that can disappear with age. Its spore print is snuff brown.
The German Mycological Society (DGfM) lists funeral bells under amatoxin syndrome, in the same group as the death cap. Typical symptoms are severe vomiting and diarrhoea, then an apparent improvement while liver damage begins, up to liver failure, clotting disorders and kidney failure. They usually start 8 to 12 hours after the meal, within a range of 4 to 36 hours.
Sulphur tuft (Hypholoma fasciculare) fruits all through the year in Britain, most abundantly from June to November. It grows on stumps, felled trunks and other dead wood of broadleaf trees and, less often, conifers. Its gills start sulphur yellow, turn olive green and then blacken as the spores ripen. Its spore print is purplish brown.
The DGfM lists sulphur tuft under gastrointestinal syndrome. For this syndrome it gives nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, with a latency of 15 minutes to 4 hours. The DGfM adds that a short latency does not rule out a serious poisoning by a species with a long latency.
Take a spore print, but use its colour as one check among several, never as the only one, and keep the whole fruitbody including the stem base. In Germany, the DGfM shows certified mushroom experts near you on a map.
Get medical advice immediately if you think someone may have been poisoned. Symptoms can take a few hours or days to start, so do not wait for them.
In the UK, the NHS says to call 999 or go to A&E if you think someone may have swallowed something harmful. If you are not sure whether something is harmful, call NHS 111. In the US, the poison center number is 1 800 222 1222. If the person collapses, has a seizure, has trouble breathing or cannot be woken, Poison Control says to call 911. The BVL lists the poison centres in Germany and Austria, for example the Berlin poison emergency line on 030 192 40. In Austria, the poison information centre (Vergiftungsinformationszentrale) is on +43 140 643 43. In Switzerland, Tox Info Suisse runs the emergency number 145.
To see which species are in season in your region this month, use the Season Finder, or see the foraging calendar for December; both are linked below.
Look very similar to chickweed. Flowers yellow, red, blue or pink, never white like chickweed. No line of hairs along the stem.
Never pick a cluster of mushrooms from a stump on colour and habitat alone. Take a spore print, keep the whole fruitbody with its stem base, and have every find checked by a mushroom expert. If in doubt, leave it.
Common chickweed can be found all year round except under snow, after a severe frost or in very dry weather. Hairy bittercress is available all year. Velvet shank keeps fruiting through the winter. Chickweed has lookalikes you need to rule out.
Yes. Velvet shank fruits from autumn through winter into early spring. Jelly ear can be seen throughout the year. Sulphur tuft also fruits all year in Britain, and the DGfM lists it under gastrointestinal syndrome.
Scots pine needles grow in pairs on short side shoots. Yew needles grow in two rows along the twig and have a raised central vein underneath. Yew needles and chewed seeds contain taxines.
Jelly ear grows mainly on dead and decaying elder wood. It can be seen throughout the year.
Get medical advice immediately; symptoms can take hours or days to start. In the UK call 999 or go to A&E. In the US call 1 800 222 1222. The BVL lists the poison centres in Germany and Austria, in Austria the number is +43 140 643 43, in Switzerland 145.
Forage shows you the species in your region and pings you when the season starts.
All information without guarantee. This text is orientation on season and habitat, not an identification guide, and it makes no claim about whether any specific plant or mushroom is edible. Many species have toxic, some deadly, lookalikes. Never eat or use anything that has not been identified with certainty by an expert, such as a qualified mushroom inspector. We accept no liability for any harm arising from the use of this information. If you suspect poisoning, call your local poison control center or emergency services right away. Mind conservation law and property rights.
