Great balls of fire! Cramp ball fungus for bushcraft.

Hello there. I'm out in my local woods today looking for something called Cramp Ball Fungus or King Alfred's Cakes. They're little hard black fungus that typically grow on ash, beech, possibly oak, mostly hardwoods. In fact I think exclusively hardwoods. So I'm in a hardwood wood and I'm going to look for some. Hopefully I'll find some because they make an excellent tinder source. This is exactly the sort of place I would expect to find them. A big branch has fallen off the tree and landed. Some of it's on the ground, some of it's raised up and it's normally on those raised up bits where you find the fungus. Excellent. Here's one here, looks pretty chewed up and knackered but it's obviously dropped off one of these trees, so where there's one there's got to be more. Found a load of them just over there. Oh get in there. This big fallen branch is absolutely wick with exactly the type of fungus that we're after. They're all over the underneath of here and And they're all absolutely bone dry and brittle. Which is exactly how we want them for lighting fires. There you go, there's absolutely dozens of them under here, they're under there, they're under that bit. They're all over the place, easily enough to light a dozen or more fires. So we're going to take some and we're going to use our knife to make sure they come off without breaking up. We're basically just going to slice them off. And that's exposed that beautifully dry inside. See all those concentric rings there, that's where the fungus has grown and grown and grown. A little bit like the rings in a tree and I'm presuming if you put that against time you'd be able to tell exactly how old that piece of fungus was. I don't know how old it is but I do know it's excellent for lighting fires. Lovely dry exterior, lovely dry interior. It's been raining the last couple of nights, today it's dry. I would have expected these to be a little bit damp but they're They're absolutely bone dry. And now, because it's so windy elsewhere, I think we'll just have a demonstration here of just how easily this fungus can take a spark. I'll put it on the ground here in a bare patch of earth, drop sparks in, and see if it catches them. A red hot. It's almost like a lump of coal. It took no more than two or three strikes. That's a light, and then we've got a really good source of heat to make our fire. Look at that. Absolutely glowing inside of there. Excellent stuff. I'm going to have to make damn sure I put this out. Because the forest floor is actually quite dry. Well, I was really lucky to find those. And just from that one branch, it's given me a nice little handful of tinder fungus. And there'll be more than this still left on there. So I'm going to get on and see if I can find anything else of interest. There we go. Another branch absolutely laden with these fungus. They're all over the place in here because this wood is mostly ash. A really excellent place for finding this marvellous tinder fungus. Now these fungus are most prevalent on ash, but they also grow on other hardwoods as well. So if you see ash trees in a largely unmanaged forest, you can guarantee that some of those branches that have hit the ground will have some of these little fellas on. So as long as you have a rudimentary knowledge of which tree is which, that should lead you to good tinder. Now, if you like the idea of learning about bushcraft and survival, just bear in mind that my channel is not a bushcraft and survival channel. Yes, I do do bushcraft videos, and there is going to be some survival videos coming, but that's not my speciality. I can recommend four channels that do have that as their speciality, and they are excellent. I watch them all the time. The first one is MCQ Bushcraft. He's a guy in the UK who has a really nice speaking voice, something I don't have, and he explains everything really well. Thank you. He's got a lot of videos, so the link to his channel is in the video description. Second is a friend of his called Zed Outdoors. He's also based in the UK. They do little collaborations. This guy is going to start doing videos about natural crafts and all sorts of things. He's a great guy as well, so check out his channel, Zed Outdoors, link in the video description. The third one is a lady in, where the hell is it? Now is it Norway, Sweden or Finland? Oh God, in Scandinavia. And she does great bushcraft videos as well. She's in the process of building a shelter out in the woods, so there's been a serialised set of videos about that. She also does shooting as well, so she's well worth checking out. And her channel name is Alone Wolverine. Link in the video description. And if you're into bug out, survival, the gear that goes along with that, there's an excellent channel from the US called Ultimate Survival Tips. I watch him all the time as well, so he's great. He makes very professional videos. Probably out of the four, he... Oh, then again, I don't know. His videos are professional. Very good. Nice fella. Deals with the weaponry and so on. All sorts of things. Does product reviews. Really nice guy. Link in the video description. Ultimate Survival Tips. So there's four really great channels if you're into the outdoors, bushcraft and survival. I'll bring you what I can, but obviously I work full time. I've got a lot of commitments outside of work with the kids and the clubs, karate, football, all that sort of thing. So I'm not regularly going to upload bushcraft videos. I'll do them when I can. And I intend to do some shooting guides, trapping, fishing, all that sort of stuff when I can. If I'm not putting any out, please watch these other guys because they're excellent. If you've liked my videos, please click like. Share them wherever you want. If you're not a subscriber, subscribe. I'm not going to beg you to subscribe. Check out my other videos first. If you think I'm worth subscribing to, then subscribe. Thanks very much for watching. Catch you next time. What's that? Oh, well done.