GALES and floods left much of West Somerset under water but the last few days of November brought glorious sunshine and frost.

And that had an unexpected effect on Carhampton churchyard’s fungi.

Each autumn, the churchyard is home to a crop of nationally rare waxcap mushrooms, some of which are as wide as a hand.

They only grow in unimproved grassland, free from chemical fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides – such as the carefully tended churchyard.

On Wednesday, November 30, each mushroom was found to have kept a cap of frost over its own wax cap, melting only slightly as the sun touched it for a brief period in the afternoon.

Photos: Elizabeth Atkinson