#mushroom hunting

[herbalnature]

A touch of whimsy in the woods of British Columbia with these vibrant Gliophorus psittacinus mushrooms, their glistening caps peeking out from the forest floor. They really bring a pop of color to your day, don't they?

[melgillman]

Chanterelle season is here! Here’s the page I drew about them in my brand new mushroom hunting zine. You can read the whole comic for free or pay-what-you-want: https://ko-fi.com/s/6c16d1553e

[memoriesofthepark]

Pink cup lichen 》 Cladonia peziziformis

My first cladonia lichen! So gorgeous!!

Found growing on the stones of a fire pit.

Caddo Lake State Park, Texas, 3 Aug. 2024

[lavender-appalachia]

[rebeccathenaturalist]

For those who don't know, the death cap (Amanita phalloides) is one of five mushrooms, along with four Amanita species known colloquially as destroying angels, that I refer to collectively as the "deadly Amanitas". They all contain amatoxins that cause massive cell death in your liver within a few hours of consuming them, and half a cap can kill a healthy adult. There's no reliable cure, and all that can be offered is supportive care in the hopes you don't end up needing a liver transplant or simply dying.

This is why I bang the drum of identification so hard in my foraging classes. It is NOT enough to just look at a bunch of photos of mushrooms; you HAVE to be able to carry out a detailed observation of the physical characteristics of a mystery mushroom and then be able to use your observations in conjunction with LOTS of tools (not just one app or one field guide) to arrive at a positive I.D. You don't need to be a scientist to do this; you just need patience, critical thinking skills, and lots of practice.

I also want to emphasize, once again, that you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever use an ID app as your only tool, even if it's a really solid one like iNaturalist. Apps can be wrong more than occasionally, and I treat iNat as a way to get some suggested species to look into that might match my mystery mushroom, not the end point of identification.

There's no minimum number of field guides you should use, either; I've heard the assertion that if three field guides agree it must be right, but what if there's been new information that's come out since they were published? Apps, field guides, websites, blogs, journal articles, online foraging groups, other foragers in-person, classes--these are all the many resources available to you, and if you are relying on only one, you're much more likely to end up with a dangerous misidentification.

I see my job as a foraging instructor as doing my very best to make sure you don't end up as yet another cautionary tale, not just show you a bunch of pretty pictures. We have multiple examples of people who, for example, misidentified a poisonous mushroom with an app and ended up seriously regretting it. We don't know the whole story here, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's what occurred in this instance.

Be careful, be thorough, and when in doubt, throw it out. You can also contact me any time if you want my opinion on the ID of a particular mushroom--but DO NOT take my word as your only source!

[fungusqueen]

Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus gilbertsonii) I found by chance when my friend was running late for our beach date. I had heard there was a small local farm on this street and decided to drive around looking for it; I spotted this growing on a big eucalyptus tree! I happened to walk up just as the homeowner was pulling in her trash cans and we started talking about the fungus...she already knew what it was and told me I could harvest as much as I wanted!

There's a rumor/myth in the mushroom community (also written in a lot of mushroom guides) that say you shouldn't eat this mushroom growing on eucalyptus trees...because allegedly something in the eucalyptus can enter the mushroom and make you sick (with short-term gastrointestinal distress). I asked the homeowner about this and she says this mushroom has been fruiting on her tree for the past 10 years and she's eaten/cooked it and never had any issue.

I harvested some/set it aside for myself with the intention of doing my own "research" (cooking and eating) to debunk the myth but I haven't had time to cook it yet.

I brought some for 4 of my friends, with the warning that they may experience gastrointestinal distress, but they are still willing participants in my impromptu "study". One even told me he hoped it might give him diarrhea (because he's been constipated), so honestly this type of honesty and willingness to get diarrhea is the best case scenario for my "sample group". I will keep everyone updated here because I'm genuinely curious and I do intend to "study" people's alleged reaction to eating this fungus.

Anyway, the homeowner was lovely and I suggested she consult an arborist to test if her tree may be dying. This fungus causes brown rot, which decays the cellulose of the wood it grows in. She expressed concerns about it falling on her house or onto the street if it was dead inside.

I plan to revist next year to see if it's still fruting and if the tree is still there!

[mariekonrad]

we went hunting for mushrooms, but found wild herbs instead, alcublas, spain / oktober 24

[truepinkshape]

Aesthetics of the inedible...

[herbalnature]

Check out these vibrant Gliophorus psittacinus mushrooms sprouting from the earthy bed of a British Columbia forest. Their whimsical shapes and colors seem like little treasures hidden amidst the forest floor.

[melgillman]

A page from my new mushroom hunting zine! dinosaur egg mushrooms are real and they are delicious

Check out the whole zine here!

[memoriesofthepark]

Two different species of Lentinus found in the park this morning.

Spring polypore 》 Lentinus arcularius (images 1-5)

Fringed sawgill 》 Lentinus crinitus (images 6-10)

This was my first encounter with a pored Lentinus, very exciting!

Southeast Texas, 1 Sep. 2024

[obelisart]

Meow Are You? Territorial (part 1)

[rebeccathenaturalist]

I am all for creative sushi, but not when the creator doesn't fully understand the ingredients. A sushi restaurant in Montana served people sushi with raw and very undercooked morel (Morchella spp.) mushrooms on it. Over fifty people ended up sick with gastrointestinal upset, and two people actually died. Other restaurants that served the same batch of morels, fully cooked, had no such issues, and there was no evidence that there was any mishandling of the morels that could have caused a bacterial or other contamination. So it's pretty clear that the raw morels themselves were to blame.

Yes, there are a few wild mushroom species you can eat raw, and only in small amounts). No, Morchella are not among them. Morels have a toxin in them that's neutralized by cooking; Paul Stamets theorized that it's hydrazine, but no one has been able to isolate hydrazine in a morel yet so that's not a done deal. Whatever it is, there's enough of it that it tends to give people nasty gastrointestinal upset when they eat raw morels, even in small quantities. This is the first I've heard of people dying from it.

It's not the only time I've heard of people dying from consuming a commonly-considered-edible mushroom, though. There were two separate incidents--2004 and 2009--in which several people who ate angel wing mushrooms (Pleurocybella porrigens) died of encephalopathy. Now, it did turn out that most of the people sickened had pre-existing liver and/or kidney issues. And a 2011 study identified an unstable amino acid, now named Pleurocybellaziridine, as the possible fatal factor that was found in large quantities in angel wings. It could be that the culprits were flushes of these mushrooms with abnormally high amounts of Pleurocybellaziridine. But you can't tell how much of a given metabolite a given mushroom has just by looking at it, and so that raises enough of an alarm for me personally that as a forager I just put angel wings on the "do not eat" list.

Will I continue to eat morels? Yes. The toxicity associated with raw morels has been known for a long time, and there have been no recorded issues with thoroughly cooked morels (the angel wings were also cooked, meaning the toxin is not thermolabile.) And as mentioned before, almost any edible wild mushroom is going to give you gastrointestinal issues if you eat it raw. The mushrooms you get at the store are a weird outlier that can be safely eaten raw. And by the way, button mushrooms, criminis, and portobellos are all the same species--Agaricus bisporus--at different stages of development.

This is why I emphasize in my foraging classes that you should always cook your wild mushrooms thoroughly, and if you're trying a new species for the first time only eat a small amount and then wait a few days to make sure you don't have any reactions. As the saying goes, there are old mushroom hunters and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters.

[theenbyroiderer]

Went mushroom foraging today and found so much pretty stuff to photograph too!

[foundfeast]

My first foraged mushroom back in 2020

ID: Chicken of The Woods Found: Pennsylvania