The mushroom growing at Belsize Park tube station

A CROP of slimy, beige-coloured mushrooms were spotted sprouting from the depths of Belsize Park tube station last week.

Steve Karmeinsky, who has lived in Belsize Park since the early 1990s, said he was shocked to discover the fungi towards the top of the stairwell that leads to the platforms.

“It was a bit wet down there and they had put sandbags down. I was walking past and then suddenly there were these nasty mushrooms growing. They looked like bathroom mushrooms that had just gone a bit mad,” he told the New Journal.

Another resident said they noticed the “pasta”-like mushrooms in early February and alerted Transport for London (TfL) on February 5 and February 14.

On Wednesday, TfL said the area will be cleaned and mushrooms removed. Unlike the deadly fungus in hit HBO series The Last of Us, which zombifies humans and is based on the real-life ant killer (Cordyceps) fungi, the mushrooms found in Belsize Park aren’t dangerous, a mycologist has confirmed.

Field mycologist Andy Overall identified them as the harmless – and hardy – Cellar Cup mushrooms (Peziza cerea).

He said it is “absolutely bizarre” that they were sprouting from a sandbag: “I’ve seen those Cellar Cups in all sorts of situations. Coming out of walls halfway up a wall and in cracks between pavements.

“They found a similar thing at Heathrow when they were doing terminal four. They were digging underground and there was lots of water coming in and then suddenly this fungi started appearing. They’re pretty harmless.”

Andy Overall

Cellar Cups like wet, dark environments and feed off minerals, such as lime found in mortar, to survive.

“The spores get in there quite easily; they find ways through. Then they’ll germinate and produce mycelium, which is the main part of the fungus that will be absorbing all the nutrients that it wants,” he said. ” And then it will produce fruit bodies, which is what you’re seeing, and they will release more spores and if there’s anything else they can utilise they certainly will.

“But generally those things don’t hang around for long. They’ll utilise what’s there and they’ll be gone. Couple of years at the most. “[Cellar Cups] are different to conventional mushrooms with stems and caps. They belong to a different order called the ascomycetes. There’s about 7,000 or maybe more ascomycetes in the UK. And among those are things like Morales, which are expensive, edible mushrooms.”

Belsize Park tube station [Sunil060902]

While Cellar Cups aren’t poisonous, foragers should look elsewhere for their dinner. “I wouldn’t count them as being edible at all,” Mr Overall said.

Mr Overall used to live in Golders Green and led mushroom walks on Hampstead Heath. He has been surveying the Royal Parks and the area surrounding Heathrow Airport.

In 2018 he discovered a new mushroom near the airport and named it Cortinarius heatherae after his wife. TfL did not want to comment further.