Adventures in Mushrooming: One tasty old man

Ornate Box Turtle

I got lost in the woods yesterday and, after battling the bugs and the heat and my haywire internal compass, I finally came out with a basket of Chanterelles, Chestnut Boletes, Pale Oysters, and one Old Man of the Woods. It was a nice haul but what I was really after was Black Trumpets, they're still evading me. I also wanted to check on some smaller Chicken of the Woods I had left behind a few days ago but the whole getting lost thing made it difficult to find. I never get turned around in the woods but I took a new trail, then went bushwhacking (FYI: the good shrooms are never on trails). I'm apparently getting old. I did manage to find and photograph a ton of other mushrooms and spent a couple hours keying them out on MushroomExpert.com. This site is an invaluable resource for identifying your mushrooms.

"Smooth Chanterelles" Craterellus lutescens

The delicious Chanterelle (Craterellus lutescens) graces the menus of the finest French restaurants and if you go out into the woods right now you will likely find them in fairly large quantities. They grow in mixed hardwood forests, popping up from the leaf litter like bright little orange/yellow flowers. When you have a basket full, stick your nose in there and smell the wonderfully strange fruity, floral, non-mushroomy smell.

Special note: If you find a large cluster of orange/yellow mushrooms with prominent gills growing on a tree (or buried wood) they're likely Jack O' Lanterns and those will really ruin your day (or several days). They also faintly glow in the dark, thus the name. Make sure you look up the difference before chowing down, a good rule is to never eat chanterelles that grow on wood.

"Chestnut Bolete" Gyroporus castanaeus

The Chestnut Bolete (Gyroporus castaneus) is a small non bruising bolete with a bright white pore surface and a (mostly) hollow stem. Boletes are a type of mushroom without gills, there is a surface of tiny pores, like a sponge. A general rule of thumb (there are always exceptions, do your homework!) is that inedible boletes have red pore surfaces, discolor when damaged, and have a bitter or otherwise unpleasant taste (yes, you can taste mushrooms to ID them, just don't swallow!). The Chestnut Bolete is one of my favorite mushrooms but it's so small that you can't make much of a meal out of them. They're usually only about an inch across. The trick is to dehydrate them until you have amassed enough for a dish. All edible Boletes take well to dehydration and most of the time the flavor is enhanced. I found three of these guys today and I now have a grand total stockpile of six.

"Pale Oyster" Pleurotus pulmonarius

Pale Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus pulmonarius) have been popping all over after all the rain. They're an easy find and, with very few poisonous lookalikes (namely in Japan), they're an easy ID as well. Look for creamy white, soft, "oyster" shaped, shelf mushrooms growing, typically in clusters, directly on dead wood. The thin gills run down onto the short stem and the spore print is white (more about spore prints further on). These are great just sauteed, in soups, or even lightly battered.

The highlight of yesterday's foray was this beauty, Old Man of the Woods (Strobilomyces "floccopus"). This rare striking mushroom is a bolete covered in soft grey tufts, with a black spore surface and brown/black print. It is a much underrated mushroom, in my opinion. Most guides say that it's an edible but not worth eating. I totally disagree, it has a fantastic bold but unoffensive meaty mushroom flavor but the best part is that it has an artichoke-like sweetness. Artichokes, one of my favorite foods, contain cynarin, a chemical that messes with your taste receptors making everything taste slightly sweet. I'm curious if the Old Man contains the same or similar chemicals.

Spore Print of Strobilomyces floccopus

Color changes of Strobilomyces floccopus

"Old Man of the Woods" Strobilomyces floccopus

On spore printing: Spore print color and sometimes microscopic analysis of spores themselves can be vital in identifying mushrooms that may appear otherwise identical. To make a spore print, place the spore surface (gills or pores) down on sheets of white or black paper (depending on expected spore color) and cover with a glass for several hours. You can also print onto glass, that's obviously better for the microscope and you can place black or white under the spores to better see the color variation. Let them dry, label them, and store individually in zip lock bags.

Hypomyces chrysospermus infected Bolete

These two poor little boletes are not long for this world, they are fully engulfed in parasitic fungi, the mushroom is too far gone to ID but the parasitic fungus can be identified. I wouldn't eat these two but some mushroom parasite fungi cause specific mutations that can change normal edible mushrooms into choice edibles, as in the Lobster Mushroom. I have yet to find one of those, I'll keep you posted.

Syzygites megalocarpus infected Bolete

This very striking mushroom is Rhodotus palmatus. It's somewhat rare and grows on dead wood. It has a wrinkly, rubbery skin covering the cap that can be peeled away in a somewhat disturbing manner. It's a neat mushroom but it kinda creeps me out.

Rhodotus palmatus

amanita muscaria var guessowii

Amanita banningiana

These musrooms are all Amanitas, this genus has a few choice edibles but I'll leave these for the higher educated mycologists due to the fact that it also holds some of the most deadly as well as a few intoxicating species (I'll let you research those on your own).

Amanita banningiana

Amanita vaginata var alba

These two sweethearts are Russulas, they are a notoriously difficult genus to classify. I believe they are Russula cystidiosa but I'm really guessing. There's a few choice edibles in there but I have not yet ventured into eating gilled mushrooms. I'll probably start with Lactarius not Russula.

These are just two of the many Boletes out there right now. The large tan one is a Bitter bolete and, as you can imagine, it tastes very bitter. The best way to distinguish between these similar large beige non-bruising boletes species is to take a pea sized nibble in the front of your mouth, chew it a bit then spit it all out, and rinse your mouth before you swallow. If it's bitter it's obviously no good but if it's pleasant it's a keeper.