Rare truffle find in Scottish spruce forest sends fungi experts on alien species hunt

Chamonixia caespitosa, a truffle normally found in the Alps and Scandinavia, has only been recorded once before in the UK, in north Wales. Photograph: Caroline Hobart

Naturalists have found a very rare type of truffle living in a Scottish forestry plantation which is being cut down so a natural Atlantic rainforest can grow in its place.

The discovery of the globally rare fungus near Creagan in the west Highlands has thrown up a paradox: the work to remove the non-native Sitka spruce, to allow rewilding by native trees, means the truffle will be lost.