Note: This is an archived post. You can find the current version here. This beautiful, large polypore is a common sight in woods during the spring. You can find it fruiting prominently from the bases of dead trees.
It’s morel season! Keep an eye out for these beautiful, tasty mushrooms now through late may! There are a few species of Yellow Morels in North America, but Morchella esculentoides is the most common one.
Lobster Mushrooms are the strangest mushrooms you will ever eat. Yes, these mushrooms are even stranger than edible stinkhorns, which are foul-smelling and sometimes gelatinous. What makes Lobster Mushrooms truly weird is that they are actually a fungus (Hypomyces lactifluorum) growing on top of a mushroom. It is this parasitic relationship that gives Lobster Mushrooms their shape and makes them edible.
Note: This is an archived post. The current version of this post is available here. This edible mushroom can be found in specialty markets under the names “Enokitake” and “” It can also be found in the wild in temperate areas across the Northern Hemisphere, but the wild mushrooms look nothing like the cultivated versions. Flammulina velutipes has many common names, including: Velvet Foot, Enokitake, Enoki, Winter Mushroom, Velvet Stem, Velvet Shank, Golden Needle Mushroom, and others. I am using the name Velvet Foot because it is among the most commonly used names and it sounds the most poetic. According to Wikipedia, Enoki is the Japanese name for the Chinese Hackberry Tree, a tree in the hemp family on which F. velutipes is often found. Thus, “Enokitake” means “Chinese Hackberry Tree Mushroom.” Wikipedia also says that the Chinese names for this mushroom translate to Golden Needle Mushroom or Golden Mushroom. ...
Because of their resilient nature, lichens are able to grow in almost any climate. Their primary environmental role is initial soil creation, but they also provide food and shelter for animals and are used in a variety of ways by humans. In case you missed last week, here is a recap. Lichens are composite organisms that contain a few different species living in a mutualistic relationship. All lichens contain a mycobiont (a fungus) and a photobiont (a green alga and/or a cyanobacerium). The mycobiont provides structure while the photobiont provides sugar through photosynthesis.
This beautiful coral mushroom is easily distinguished by its distinctive tips. The tip of each branch sports a number of small points that surround a bowl-like, central depression. It is this crown-like arrangement that earned the Crown-Tipped Coral its common name. No other coral fungi in North America have this distinctive crown pattern, so pyxidatus is easy to identify. The fruiting body is a medium-sized to large, branching structure, like other coral fungi. Each branch develops from one of the tips at the end of another branch. Older branches at the base of the mushroom are thicker to support the rest of the structure. The coral fungus varies in color from white to yellowish to tan, with the newly-formed branches at the top lighter than the old branches at the base.
This bolete is easily distinguished by the prominent tufts of black “hair” that cover the otherwise greyish cap and stipe. Despite the old man imagery, floccopus is probably one of the most beautiful mushrooms. It at least deserves to be counted among the best dressed mushrooms due to its showy scales. The scales are the most striking feature of the Old Man of the Woods. They are soft, black, and wooly, which makes them stand out from the whitish to grayish pileus. The wooly fibers are long and often hang over the edge of the convex pileus, giving the mushroom an unkempt appearance. On top of that, the cap’s margin often sports the remnants of a whitish to grayish partial veil. The stipe is similarly covered with dense, black fibers, which obscure the whitish to grayish color of the stipe surface. When you flip the mushroom over, you will notice...
After discussing a few mushrooms you should avoid, I thought you deserved to hear about one of my favorite edible mushrooms. Lactarius indigo has a good flavor, but what really makes this mushroom enjoyable is its color. As you can guess from its name, indigo is blue. Blue mushrooms are fairly rare, so they are always fun to find. This beautiful mushroom is also edible, making it one of the few naturally blue foods. Most bluish foods – such as blueberries – are actually reddish-purple. I have enjoyed this mushroom grilled with some seasoning, but there are other ways prepare it. One of the more festive options is to cook it with scrambled eggs. This, as you may guess, gives you green eggs (without needing any food coloring*)!
This beautiful jelly mushroom also goes by a variety of other common names, including: silver ear fungus, white ear fungus, and white jelly fungus. The fungus fruits from decaying wood and produces white, translucent mushrooms that have a gelatinous consistency. Its name seems to come from its white color and roughly snowball-shaped fruiting bodies. Although, if you ask me, its name was probably also inspired by its “graceful lobes,”* which look somewhat like large, squishy points on a snowflake. The snow fungus’s range is tropical to subtropical, but it can apparently be found in the United States at least as far north as Indiana. Despite its name, you will not find this mushroom poking out of snow-covered branches. The mushroom prefers to fruit in the summer and fall, so if you want to see this fungus for yourself you’ll either have to wait half a year or visit the mushroom...
Note: This is an archived post. Read the current version of this post here. The oyster mushroom is one of the few species of mushroom that you can routinely find at a grocery store. This is due to the fact that it is saprobic (it degrades dead plant material) and is easy to cultivate across a range of substrates. P. ostreatus will decompose pretty much anything with cellulose: from logs to sawdust to straw to toilet paper. Oyster mushrooms are often sold in grow-at-home mushroom kits, usually with a substrate like sawdust. In nature they are usually found on logs or standing dead trees. Occasionally you will find them growing terrestrially from buried wood. The Oyster prefers hardwoods, but can also be found on conifers. The name “Oyster Mushroom” refers to their shape and color, rather than taste. The fruiting bodies are semicircular to shell-shaped or fan-shaped, with a short or...
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