Spruce bolete amongst the white matsutake woods

Here are a few photos of Spruce boletes (Leccinum piceinum). I usually can not ID orange/red cap scaber-caps with many different staining colors and cap and stem scabers, but these were in a strictly conifer only woods where I was gathering white matsutake, these boletes are considered to be a good edible that is especially flavorful in dried form.

Click on photo to notice the spruce bolete on the rolling mossy terrain.

Off in the back section of this photo are 5  or so white mutsutake mushrooms in dark conifer forest these mushroom can be noticed hundreds of feet away. Actually any mushroom can be seen well in the moss or needle duff with the absence of fallen hardwood leaves.

The 2 orange colored mushrooms picked  up in mixed woods of birch, poplar and conifers are quite noticeable at the back of this tray of mushrooms and are a different variety of Leccinum then the spruce bolete (Leccinum piceinum) and the stem texture, cap cuticle and mushroom flesh staining was very different then the other mushrooms when preparing them for the drier, but if I had 4 or 5 different varieties on this tray these differences would not have been noticed.  Orange/red capped Leccinum are a very common Northern Hemisphere & Atlantic Canadian  mushroom with some very good edibles in the group though IDing them is difficult with 6 to 10 varieties with a couple of possible rogues in the group, there have been some GI illnesses reported in the mid and western USA. Conifer forest narrows down your possible Leccinum species considerably and is a good place to start exploring orange/red cap Leccinums as a possible forageable food source. ciao

White Matsutake are starting to show

I stopped after work for a quick peek incase the white matsutake mushrooms were starting to fruit in my favorite spot.  There were a few boletes and gypsy mushrooms so I suspected this was still a bit early for white matsutake as gypsy mushrooms mostly are gone by the time white matsutake starts, but I was surprised to find a few small white matsutakes already up.

A deer must have nibbled the top of this young white matsutake but was unable to pull the deep stem out from the ground, I needed to patiently wiggle the stem free myself and the below photo is this mushroom removed from the soil.

I Should find some of the larger version of white matsutake arriving in these woods in coming weeks.

Here is a photo of the white matsutake part of my basket and the other half will be shown in a little while.

ciao

Baskets overfloweth

Nature Moncton held a wild mushroom workshop this afternoon so I took over the mushrooms that were shown in last night’s blogging boletus post and decided this morning to gather up a few more varieties for the event.

Started out pretty good with a few honey mushrooms, king boletes and orange-latex milkys, but I soon found out all the small mushroom would need to be transfer to other containers as the King bolete and bay bolete were out in force. I gathered 2 other wild mushrooms,  Catathelasma ventricosum and  a handful of grayling and then spent the next hour picking some huge boletes some over a lb each and end up with more king boletes then I’ve seen in a decade, the dry summer with a rainy last half of September really stirred up the boletus.

The baskets and car trunk were full and now the food driers are heating the house on this cool evening with the pleasant aroma of earthy King and Bay boletus. I can smell the lovely winter soups already. ciao

Blogging Boletus

I was out to find white matsutake, but boletus stole the show. Click on and have look

King Bolete maybe.

No it is the Bay Bolete (Boletus badius), still a tasty one.

These seem interesting.

Chrome-foot Bolete (Leccinum chromapes).

Here are some pear-shaped puffballs (Lycoperdon pyriforme) a little bolete break. View looking down a standing tree trunk.

Scaber cap (Leccinum ?) these boletes are staining electric blue in small areas when cut on a few of these Scaber caps and rose and light pink on others.

Here are 6 different edible boletus, clockwise, (1) chrome-foot bolete, (2) scaber cap, (3) hollow-stem suillus, (4) banana bolete, (5) bay bolete and in the center (6) king bolete. This area is my favorite white matsutake site and rarely produces any boletes accept hollow-stems though I’m not complaining all these boletes are good edibles and most of what I gathered will be dried for soups this winter. There has been recent warnings on the safeness of scaber caps though, as they may not agree with everyone’s tummies. It is always best to try very small amounts of any new food and in fact I found 3 different varieties of scaber caps today, based on the staining of the flesh and cap colors so I will be sampling each type  with caution due to GI reports from the USA in recent years. I have eaten (red/orange Leccinum scaber caps) in dried form for a number of years without any problems but I’m still going to separate the varieties and become real familiar with each type. ciao

Hen of the foray

Gypsy mushrooms (Cortinarius caperatus), click on any of the photos for a closer look.

This next photo of gypsy mushrooms is foggy though the white powdery bloom is very noticeable on the young caps.

I returned home Sunday evening from the Nova Scotia Mycological Society’s 2012 weekend foray held in Ship Harbour NS at the Deanery Project. This down to earth or more accurately into earth event was very enjoyable and although my usual outings are silent,  timeless experiences, I was deeply moved to be on the trails with a variety of folks enjoying nature, the truth of what we are one might say.

Since this rugged part of Nova Scotia with lots of conifer forest, rocky areas and many lakes and small rivers along the Atlantic coast was new to me I chose a variety of routes back and forth to the foray and noticed Red Oak trees in a few isolated areas I decided to make a stop at one of these spots since Oak trees are rare in my home area and Oaks are well known for hosting many choice edible mushrooms.

I’ve been foraging wild mushrooms for many decades and this is my first gathering of Maitake or Hen of the Woods, (Grifola frondosa). No wonder this wild edible is so popular in the New England states as it is very tender and tasty and fills the basket in no time.

This mushroom is excellent pan fried in butter, but 3/4 of the collection will be dried and used as a nice addition to my other medicinal tea mushrooms (white matsutake, chaga, and the gypsy mushroom)  Maitake will add a new pleasant flavour to the contents of the tea cup this winter and throughout the year.

There were a few other wild mushrooms amongst the oaks which were quiet striking, including some large colorful Russulas and this purple stemmed bolete which looks like Tylopilus eximius  but the nearest conifer was 75 feet away?

I’ll stop now, you’ve been dazzled enough by the glorious fungus fruits of Nova Scotia. ciao for now

Wooden know it, till you see it

It is easy to see how full of live this old poplar stump is today with the (fawn mushroom) Pluteus cervinus on top, some young cup fungus in the middle and further down a tinder polypore.

Click on the photo for a good look, this old stump deserves our attention for naturally being a gracious host to the many who have flourished in this residence.  ciao

The king is back, the lobster to and maybe the miller?

Nice to see a King Bolete.

Here is a photo showing the pores on the underside of the cap and also another little bolete relative leaning on the king.

Another king bolete not far away over seeing his domain.

A string of lobster mushroom  far out into the field, usually they will be on the very edge of fields or more commonly in the woods.

These mushrooms I suspect are Clitopilus prunulus (sweetbread or miller mushroom), since I haven’t collected or eaten this one before they will need to be preserved until their identity is verified which means I’ll mail out a few dried specimen soon as matching field characteristics and a pink spore print just aren’t enough to take a chance on, this one has a few dangerous look alikes..  ciao

Banana Boletus

The plan was to find the above poplar trunk and cut a section to take home to see if I could possibly grow a few of these in my yard which I suspect are Hypsizygus tessulatus. These mushrooms are quite  popular as an edible mushroom in Japan known as Buna Shimeji.  Although I took the above photo only a week ago and the area to re-step was only an acre or so large I was unable to find this log and my other idea was to possibly find a few more lobster mushrooms, but there were only a few overmature ones left there.

The forest mushrooms changed quite dramatically in a short spell, by now I should be use to this, though again I was pleasantly surprised as there were numerous very beautiful but poisonous destroying Angels in the woods and even more numerous Banana boletus (Leccinum subglabripes) in photo above.

I took this photo for a few reasons (1) I didn’t place this banana boletes mushroom in the tree (2) You can notice a destroying Angel on the ground to the left if you click to enlarge the photo. (3) Many mushrooms close by had been eaten by the forest creatures as many caps were gone with just the remaining stems still there, so I’m curious to who placed this mushroom in the tree, a squirrel, chipmunk, tossed by a deer, coyote, fun to speculate.

Here are the Banana boletus caps with their spongy pores removed and just a final clean up and into the dehydrator they will go, everyone loves dried banana boletus chips. This morning I’m of to find some Catathelasma ventricosum, but we will see what is in store.  ciao

The lobster mushrooms are surfacing

We received some rain this weekend which seemed to stir up our friends from the deep.

As you can see the lobster mushroom tends to stay mostly undercover though their bright color will easily draw your attention.

Of all the wild mushroom I gather the lobster mushroom is hardest to clean but they make up for this with their meaty size with many of these ones gathered today weighing around 8 ozs.

The first 6 photos are of mushrooms found within a 10 feet space and are the mushrooms in the first basket photo in front of the hollow stump.

This clump of lobsters convinced me to look around a few more trees and yes there were more close by.

Looking back it seems we will have a few lbs to eat fresh and enough for a load in the dehydrator for further down the road. ciao

Tis the season of surprises

A few blueberries and I couldn’t resist adding the only teaberry (Gaultheria procumbens) I seen tonight as these are usually gone in June.  This teaberry would be the fruit of a blossom from the  summer of 2011.

Here are new blossoms which will produce spring of 2013 teaberries if things go well. I’m  somewhat fascinated by these plants that over-winter as an early developing berry and continue on in the late spring in their ripening.

This was a bit of  a surprise as well this late in July,—-It is some spring oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus populinus) on a down popular trunk. Well it is getting dark and I’ve seen enough surprises. ciao