Fav Fall Fungi Fotos

A few mushroom photos to share with you today. These are the ones I found most joyous to stumbled upon in my local adventures this fall. The group contains a mix of maritime edibles and medicinals.

Pleurotus dryinus

Pleurotus ostreatus

Hericium americanum

King Bolete

Suillus glandulosus & Gomphidius glutinosus ( remove cap cuticle before cooking)

Birch Polypore

Chaga & selfie

Long live impermanence, a phrase made popular by thich nhat hanh and very effectively emphasized by seeing my fungi friends today, this was running through my thoughtscape on the drive home and yes we wouldn’t get to enjoy anything in this life if we were not living in this constant state of change. Many of my fellow wild food foragers are very aware there is much more to this activity then just gathering things to consume, happy trails.🦉

Trout lily green seed pods

Nibbled these green seed pods a few times over the years. Trout lily (Erythronium americanum) covers large areas of mature beech, maple hardwood forest here in the Martime provinces of Canada.

Most parts of the Erythronium americanum plant are listed as edible with the plant’s tiny bulbs considered by many to be the best for eating. The leaves and flowers are also edible though this plant comes with a warning that it can be emetic if eaten in large quantities. I find Trout lily beautiful while in flower, but today I notice it is also quite captivating while in this green seed pod stage.

My search for info on the historical use of Erythronium americanum’s green seed pods has come up empty, though I also looked for other members of Erythronium which has several in NA and Asia and it appear one out in Western Canada Erythronium grandiflorum known as the Avalanche lily has some record of food usage of the green seed pods. This was encouraging news as these pods seem like a nice way to harvest without too much negative impact on these plants.

Another photo of these beauties in a pleasant woods, very soon in this location there will be little trace of this plant as it is well known as a spring ephemeral. As for the green seed pods edibility I did consult the most knowledgeable wild food expert I know of and they agreed this is most likely  a safe part of this plant to consume in small amounts.

Here we see an ant’s eye view of a seedpod towering above. Although the main way trout lily spread in a forest is by runners, ants do help also when the seed pods breakdown on the ground surface, ants then have a tasty nutritious meal attached to the seed and with a natural appreciation plant some seeds during their picnic.

Canadian Wood Nettle

Out on the flood plain gathering some Laportea canadensis (Canadian wood nettle) as you can see in the basket with these scattered plants of wood nettles, are some tiny sprouting jewelweed and a few beginning strings of groundnuts and then your eyes will reach the green line of no longer fiddlehead stage ostrich ferns. Lots of energetic plants a glow here today.

Closer look at Canadian wood nettle.

Back at home and in the pot are the young solid stems of the wood nettles which are a healthy & tasty food. I should mention at this time you can actually snap the tender stems of (YOUNG) Canadian wood nettle with your bare hands without receiving any nasty stings but quite soon that will all change so beware if you’re out there.The wood nettle leaves I gathered were boiled separately and after dried and powder and will later be used as flour or added to soups, smoothies, etc

MARI(matsutake)TIME

A few photos to share on my favorite fall Tricholoma mushrooms, the matsutake.

Great year thus far for T magnivelare and T ducliolens:)

Fall is forest fungi time

Quick post on a few of the most interesting (to me) wild mushrooms I gathered today in my neck of woods near Moncton NB. Busy foraging these days so not much identification details to pass along, I’m basically just showing off my good fortune by laying these natural wonders out for you to see in a timely fashion with their names listed below. You will need to enlarge to get a slightly better look at the individual mushrooms in this not so great photo. The wild mushrooms available in the Fall can vary greatly from day to day so next week could feature 12 different quality edible mushrooms quite easily. Enjoy your Fall foraging but be careful out there, a lot of larger creatures are on the move and some of them have arms 🙂

1 o’clock – Catathelasma imperiale

2 o’clock – Catathelasma ventricosum

3 o’clock – Ramaria rubripermanens

4 o’clock – Clitopilus prunulus

5 o’clock – Tricholoma dulciolens

6 o’clock – Hedgehog mushroom

7 o’clock – Entoloma abortivum

8 o’clock – Honey mushroom

9 o’clock – Hericium americanum

10 o’clock – Lobster mushroom

11 o’clock – Suillus glandulosus

12 o’clock – Hypsizygus tessulatus

If you like you may take a wild guess on the identity of some of the small wild mushrooms in the center of the clock. ciao

Real good Ramaria

Here is a look at a young Ramaria rubripermanens with very bright colored branch tips. This is our Maritime version of the Clustered Coral mushroom and is now one of my favorite mushrooms for eating and is rated as a choice edible for good reason.

Slightly older mushroom with branches extending some and the tips are fading a bit.

Days later the branches can be antler-like and the tips more faded.

Mature Ramaria rubripermanens are much more difficult to identify if there are no young mushrooms also present beside them. One clue that you are gathering R rubripermanens on older faded out mushrooms is the (base) of the mushroom often have some bright red coloring on both young and older mushrooms. We do have a few other Ramaria in the Maritime provinces with some of them having questionable edibility so gather your big coral mushrooms with care.

They can be quite large.

Closer look, some claim only the young mushrooms are good eating, I don’t notice much difference in taste between young and mature R rubripermanens, you do need to make sure the base and branch flesh is solid, white in color and not watery or mushy.

These mushrooms can be rare in many areas in the world so if you have some around you can count yourself fortunate. This mushroom is being studied these days for it’s antimicrobial properties and may become more known as an important medicinal mushroom to go along with being also a choice wild edible mushroom, kind of a nice combo:)

Water Pennywort

Over the winter I remember reading about the interesting medicinal and edible Asian plant Gotu kola and was hopeful of taking some time this year to find our close Maritime relative Hydrocotyle americana. One pleasant thing about foraging is being reminded of little projects while foraging for other things as wild mushrooms are my main focus today.

Here we have Water Pennywort on the ground with the mint family member Bugleweed towering above. I can’t give any info from my own experience on eating or beverages made from Hydrocotyle americana so I must leave this as just another interesting little plant not well known to share as the more familiar we become with these types of plants, (this one was found on an old woods road in Kent county NB) the more we will be willing to protect them from human over indulgence in our surroundings. We can be conscious of our own gatherings and be aware the impact of some of the other ones going on around us.

Jack Pine Mushrooms

Here is a new edible for me, these Hawk wing mushroom are easy to ID to Sarcodon but a little tricky to nail down all the way. These in the above photo appear to be Sarcodon squamosus due to their large size with some caps in the surroundings being 20 to 25 cm across, also they were not bitter tasting and grew in Jack Pine, all factors to help with identification. These mushrooms tend to get mixed reviews as edibles so leave this one off your list unless you are very experienced with edible wild mushrooms. In the jack pine forest visually Hawk wing mushrooms are a very pleasant find.

Now these above Lyophyllum mushrooms are very interesting to me also and may actually be Lyophyllum shimeji which is a prized edible in Japan. Lyophyllum shimeji has been found in northern Europe and recently NFLD so this maybe more than just wishful thinking on my behalf as the sandy acid soil with plenty of lichen under jack pine trees fits the bill for Lyophyllum shimeji. It has been a very dry year for Moncton area mushrooms but even this type of year can produce some nice surprises.

Chokecherries

Trying a few new food things with chokecherries which I’ll probably post on down the road. Here is a phone photo trailer for you which seems to nicely capture a forager’s view of this abundant wild Maritime fruit. Ciao

 

 

 

 

Amelanchier berries

 

Adding this photo to my wild fruit page and should also say a few words as this is one of our most spectacular wild fruits when ripening. Sometimes there can be numerous trees with plenty of these white, red and purplish blue berries which are very showy. These Amelanchier berries are also quite tasty especially when cooked in pies, scones and muffins.

We have around 20 different varieties of Amelanchiers here, one with a miniature American football shape which I enjoy seeing and eating. Amelanchiers vary in size from a foot high plant to 25 foot trees. Amelanchier berries are not commonly gathered in the Maritimes though in the Prairie Provinces it is an old favorite which goes by the name of Saskatoon berries. Hope you folks get a chance to see this member of the rose family one day in all its glory in a moist thicket, you’ll be pleased.