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My-co-lorful characters

2 Aug

DSC05834I sautéed the last of my charcoal burners with some lobster mushrooms for our supper tonight and after the meal I was requested to go out to the woods and gather some more. The above photo is my basket shortly into the trip.

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These are the first mushrooms I noticed upon entering the forest, Pleurotus dryinus  are a rather large member of the Oyster mushroom family.

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Pleurotus Dryinus is an unusual Oyster mushroom as it has a very noticeable long fluffy stem.

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Above is a close relative of the Reishi mushroom and has a history of being used as an artist canvas of sorts, it also is known as a good medicinal mushroom and since I wrote on it with my thumb nail I will take it home for tea. (Ganoderma applanatum).

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Here is a view looking down on the top surface on Ganoderma applanatum, this fungus can measure up to 20 inches across.

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Why not show a medicinal Chaga mushroom from this area as well.

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A small Bay bolete (Boletus badius) growing on a stumps edge.

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Another bolete member, some call it Leccinum subglabripes, others call it Boletus subglabripes, these are a common summer mushroom here.

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Never seen or gathered this choice edible before (Lactarius volemus). This is a rare mushroom this far north and I’ll mail a dried specimen to the Provincial museum for their mushroom collection.

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These are in the Russula family though Lactarius mushrooms give off a milky latex when you touch their gills which you can notice in the above photo. Lactarius volemus has a shellfish scent and its milk starts out white and stains brown in a short time.

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Another new mushroom I never gathered before, this one’s caps are also considered by some to be good eating. (Oudemansiella radicata) I’ll send this one to the museum as well.

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Here are some edibles from tonight on the table with numbers under them, click photo for closer look (1) Boletus subglabripes, (2) Suillus granulatus, (3) Boletus badius, (4) Suillus pictus (5) Charcoal burner (6) Lactarius volemus, (7) Chanterelle and (8) Yellowfoot Chanterelle. This night had some colorful surprises. ciao

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Charcoal burner, nice to eat you

1 Aug

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Started out looking for some new Black Trumpet areas though it quickly became perfectly clear this was the night of the Charcoal burner (Russula cyanoxantha).

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Rolling along, the German Association of Mycology’s 1997 mushroom of the year, yes the Charcoal burner is a very popular mushroom in most of Europe and appears in markets there.

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Often you will see some like this from a distance and as you approach look for humps under the leaves, usually there will be many small fresh mushrooms around. Slugs and other insects love these mushrooms so you will only be able to gather one good one for every 5 or so you find.

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Again you only see one though there are many under the leaves here, walk gently.

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Here in Canada very few people are gathering Charcoal burner for food as this one is tricky to identify until you have it verified by a mycologist or expert, which took me 30 plus years to finally have this occur. Once you get your verification then the field characteristics need to be studied to nail things down as the Charcoal burner is quite different from the many other Russulas you are liable to meet up with.  These mushrooms tonight where growing near beech, poplar and eastern white pine trees and there were 3 other russula varieties also here though there was no close look alike.  This large red colored Russula in the center of the Charcoal burners I can’t  identify though you will find 10s of Russula varieties ranging in shades between these 2, so initially you will need expert help.

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Some of the characteristics I find helpful to know after verification are the way the cap peels back, texture of the cap, gills do not break to the touch as most other Russulas do, the multi colors, near beech trees, size, center of cap is indented, gills have some forking , faint red under peeled cuticle. In the photo above we see mostly the  Charcoal burner with Banana boletes and a few yellowfoot chanterelles on the left. ciao

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The tree that cried wolf

29 Jul

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Tonight’s post is not on edible mushrooms, it is only to have a look at an evening in a dark forest of conifers with a few red maples, poplars and of course a few summer mushrooms popping up through the brown leaves, I’m not going to give the complete names of these mushrooms as a few (are not considered safe edibles) and others are tricky to identify based on field characteristics so let us just have a look at the sights in the evening woods starting with this glowing Russula next to a long ago fallen conifer. I don’t know what the wolf is up to here.

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A group of colorful Russulas

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Another Russula member

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This is one of our earliest Boletus to appear in eastern Canada

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This Boletus mushroom instantly stains dark blue when handled or sliced, the red to orange pore surface plus the blue staining is considered by many the key features in just enjoying the beauty of this mushroom, it is not worth gambling on as an edible, many with these features are poisonous.

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Amanita time, many members of this family of mushrooms are very poisonous, best to leave the stately Amanita mushrooms alone.

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This is a younger Amanita of the same variety as above, these are common under many types of conifers at this time in the Maritimes.

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Chanterelle, was also putting on a nice show rising above the sea of brown leaves this evening. ciao

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Wild Summer Mushrooms

28 Jul

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After some mid-week rain I was quite confident there would be a few wild mushrooms out today and Chanterelle topped the list of what I was hoping to find. It was interesting to see the different families of mushroom with the Russula, Amanita and Chanterelle family members out in numbers. Above we see 2 of the Chanterelle clan with the larger and best considered (inedible) Scaly-vase Chanterelle upfront and Chanterelle at the back of the photo.

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I won’t show any Amanita mushroom photos though I did see 4 different members in good numbers, the above photo though is of the plentiful Russulas with many pass their prime with visible spores already released, Russula compacta and the Almond-scented Russula were everywhere and a few white russula were out to which made me suspect the (parasitic) Lobster mushroom may have already gone to work transforming some of the white russulas in to the splashy orange clad lobster mushrooms.

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In the photos above are 2 of the young Lobster mushrooms I did find in this conifer area. Hope you are enjoying a wild summer. ciao

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Spring Oyster mushrooms

13 Jun

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Pleurotus populinus, finally some spring oyster mushrooms which have a soft pleasant almond aroma, these can be found on trembling aspen  and possibly  other poplar trees, this oyster is much rarer than the Oyster mushroom which appears very commonly on sugar maples in the autumn in the maritime provinces.

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Egg and flour coated Oyster mushrooms are quite tasty fried up with a little sea-rocket in your dip.

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Catching the forager’s eye

2 Jun

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I had to come over and touch this tent caterpillar’s waterproof tent as  in the light rain it felt quite rubbery and solid, usually on a sunny day they appear fragile and soft,  odd I never noticed this change before. (click on for closer look)

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Choke-cherry shrub in full bloom, noticing areas with many blossoming bushes in spring, makes for easy picking later on.

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Dewberry (Rubus pubescens) was the dominant understory plant in a large poplar groove in which I was looking for Morel mushrooms. I’m quite fond of dewberries so I will return in a month as the fruit should be ready then.

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The Monarch butterfly’s best friend Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), these are young but still a little to mature to be good eating though again this sighting calls for a return visit in 3 weeks to gather some flower buds which are a very good wild food when prepared well.

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Only wild mushroom I noticed today was the Orange Peel (Aleuria aurantia). I blew into the cap of the Orange Peel to remove some conifer needles and 2 seconds later the mushroom discharged a buff of smoke-like spores. I tried to catch this in a picture but couldn’t time it right, to blow, bring the mushroom around in front of the camera and take the picture with the other hand just didn’t work out, though it was interesting to try. This type of triggering spore dispersal was pretty consistent with mature Orange Peel mushrooms today, I don’t know if this is commonly known that the Orange Peel will do this. Well that is enough of the wilds of New Brunswick for you today. ciao

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A May Bolete

30 May

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Just a quick post on a bolete I found today under an Oak tree a few steps up the street from our house. This one may be Xanthoconium separans or possibly Boletus variipes. This is actually the first time I found a bolete in May in my neck of the woods, in fact I can’t recall seeing a king bolete type look-alike in June either. You don’t have to go anywhere to be amazed these days.

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This is a little more seasonal and edible as I’m well away from the toxins of the street and the mushroom’s identity is certain, above and below are 2 photos of Dryad’s saddle which I am adding to my wild edible mushroom page tonight.

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Here you can notice the pore surface under the cap if you click on the photo. ciao for now

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A walk down Chaga lane

15 Apr

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Actually this is one of my favorite locations for gathering chaga over the last few years and I usually travel between 500 and 1,000 feet distance parallel to this road which normally in the early evening has a car  drive by every 5 minutes or so. This is a chaga hot spot as I have collected some huge chaga on yellow birch just 1/4 mile away from where I’m walking tonight though this area here is primarily white birch.

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Most of the chaga here tonight are early in their development and I will not gather any of these though I will possible harvest some in the next 2 to 3 years.

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All of these birch trees are still able to produce leaves but probably within the next 5 years the chaga mycelium within the tree will have completed its cycle. A few years before a chaga begins to appear on a tree the mycelium has already sealed the tree’s fate so harvesting chaga while the tree is still mostly alive makes no difference to the tree’s lifespan and the best qualities in Chaga are most available while the tree is still sharing its nutrients. Older Chaga from already dead birch trees are not suitable for making tea, a good example of this is the large Chaga shaped like an angel in my (Chaga page) it was nice to look at but not a useful medicinal mushroom and I hope no one is gathering to use or selling old chaga collected of dead birch trees to anyone.

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Here is a tree I harvested 4 lbs from 2 years ago, it is still producing twigs with new buds and the chaga is also growing back as you can only see a little of the light brown area at the bottom of the Chaga where it was chopped.

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This photo is a couple new Chaga emeraging from this same tree.

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Here is the top section of this same tree with a couple of nice Chaga horns just under the top branches. A large birch like this one may produce many lbs of Chaga.

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Now I’m on my way back to my car travelling on the opposite side of the road a few hundred feet in the woods and I finally found my first one over on this side after check this area a few times over the last 3 years,  it is quite a nice one as well, as it will be easy to harvest being at ground level and should increase in size in a year or 2. The Chaga future is looking good as long as a clear-cut doesn’t roll down the lane. ciao

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Honouring winter’s hardy ones

23 Dec

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Here are a few young white birch trees prostrating to winter’s first thick coat of snow in my area. I suspect most these trees will straighten up once again, though it will be close to the summer solstice before this will occur

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A few miles down the road and closer to the Bay of Fundy coast there appears to be no snow here yet, though the temps are cold enough and at the base of an elm tree stump one of winter’s only fresh fruiting mushroom (Flammulina velutipes) also known as Velvet Foot. This mushroom often appears anytime the temperature rises above the freezing mark for a few days.  Wishing you all much hardiness.

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lots of mushroom, when friends drop in

14 Nov

Nature is being very generous with the wild oyster mushrooms today, normally I do not forage this close to a trail but this one receives no ATV traffic and is rarely travelled by anyone as it is a small 1/4 mile loop running off a country road.

I collected 2 large baskets of mushrooms from this tree and half the mushrooms are still on the tree I suspect as I’ve seen no signs of other foragers in this area besides deer and squirrels. Some of the largest mushrooms in the clusters weighted a half lb and measured 10 inches across the cap.

Here are a couple new friends I meet yesterday which may not enjoy my wild oyster mushroom soup though these black-capped chickadees certainly would relish any insects which may live around the clusters which are few and far between at this time of the year.

Black-capped chickadees are the provincial bird of New Brunswick and if they decide you are their friend look out. Usually they will fly in towards you in small groups singing as they work their way branch by branch closer to investigate, then they will often decide to fly down to you from 5 to 10 feet away if you remain comfortably still.  Rarely one may fly straight towards you from a tree a hundred feet away at eye level which can be quite a surprise the first time they greet you like this. They are very brave little birds, even the flash from my camera a foot away in my other hand didn’t spook them and 1 of the 1o or so who flew to me yesterday even gave me a peck on the finger for not having a proper gift for him, he quickly flew away though I think we are still friends. ciao

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