Walking through a woodland you may see an ash tree or beech tree with black blobs on it.  The black blobs are often on dead branches or on branches that have fallen from the tree. These blobs have various names from coal fungus to cramp balls* or King Alfred's cakes. Like so many things in woodlands, once you know to look for these, you might see them quite often.

These black lumps are usually hard, semi-spherical and about 3-4 cm in diameter.  They are the fruiting / reproductive bodies of a fungus, which finds a home in the dead wood of the tree.   The scientific name is Daldinia concentrica.  The blobs are pinkish brown colour when first formed but darken with age and may become somewhat shiny.

It is said that King Alfred, when in hiding from the Danes, once allow some cakes to burn by failing to take them out of the oven. These fungal bodies, which look as if they have been burned, are a reminder of his inattention and hence are nicknamed “King Alfred’s Cakes”. 

The fruiting bodies can be very useful for lighting fires because the inner ‘flesh’, once dried out, can be easily lit from a “firesteel”.  This is an artificial flint which creates a spark for starting fires, much used by ‘bushcraft people’.  A spark or two will ignite the dried flesh of the fungus.  Though this material burns slowly [like a barbecue briquette], once it has been lit one can transfer the glowing part to a ‘ball’ of tinder (for example, dried goosegrass) and get a fire started.

Internal concentric rings of the fungus

Now WoodlandsTV has produced a film about these interesting ‘cakes’ and how to use them to make a fire.  Matt Clarke demonstrates how to start a fire using a small piece of this dry fungus and some dried vegetation. .  This can viewed either here on the woodlands web site or on YouTube :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ulGcEHN-k0. 

• it was believed that carrying the fungus would protect people from attacks of cramp.