Awaken to a Chanterelle dream

This photo was so magically hazy I had to find away to place it in the post. A few hundred chanterelle on this steep hillside made for some pleasant shady picking. Click on the photo to see all the little orange ones all over the place.

A closer Chanterelle look but still a little groggy.

Now in this Maritime dreamland there are more than just Chanterelles as here we see a bolete in the King Bolete clan.

Check the bottom of the stem to see if it is still solid and no significant worm holes and this one as you can see is in good shape for eating.

I’ve found this mushrooms conifer cousin before on mature eastern hemlock but here is my first run in with Chicken of the Woods, Laetiporus sulphureus which you will only find on hardwoods, usually the uncommon red oak in my area, unfortunately.

Some may have a reaction to Laetiporus so start with a small amount the first time out. This is day 2 for me with this mushroom as an edible and really enjoyed it cooked in butter then made into a sandwich with lettuce and mayo, the initial try was a piece the size of a dried apricot sliced in 1/4″ strips and fried in olive oil for 10 minutes which was over cooked but I could see potential. So concludes this dreamy Maritime mushroomy post. ciao

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Time to forage a field

It’s not to late to still find some good edible mushrooms even with the early morning temps hovering near the freezing point. Here is a nice Boletus to prove it. Today I’ve noticed a lot of activity near my usual gathering grounds as deer hunting season has recently started so it may be wise to make myself a lot more visible, so its time to appear out into some open fields. The key here is to select areas which are not sprayed and safe to walk around in, wear hunter orange just in case someone is where they shouldn’t be. Here are some of the mushrooms you may encounter this week in shore- line picnic parks, well travelled walking trails and open recreational areas in the Maritime provinces.

Blewits

Horse mushrooms

Graylings are sometimes in open heath &  grassy areas as long as there is also hair-cap moss.

You know it’s kind of nice out here in the sun on these cold ones. ciao

A moving day under the trees

Hoping to gather some King Bolete mushrooms today under Norway Spruce, but this one was the only one I found in good shape so it was time to move on and go with the flow which was to gather a few different edibles and marvel at the shapes and colors of some of the other mushrooms which go unmentioned usually in my post.

First stop was in an eastern white cedar forest which is a place I can’t recall visiting at this time of year so I don’t know what to expect,  the orange of Lactarius thyinos is the first mushroom which catches my eye.

Eastern white cedar again and I have no idea what mushroom this is though its stem is interesting, a wild guess would be something from the Hebeloma family. I’ll dry these and send them away for identification.

 

Last photo from under eastern white cedar and again I’m stumped as this is again a mushroom I’m unfamiliar with though it probably is a Sarcodon member judging by the teeth under the cap. I think I’ll leave here now as I’m starting to notice how little I know.

Here I am again in a forest I often visit and the mushroom of the day in large numbers was the Gypsy mushroom in this mixed woods of beech, birch and hemlock.

Favouring the beech and birch were these Hedgehog mushrooms.

A Lobster mushroom along the path surrounded by young birch.

Oh this is actually something I was expecting to run into one day and here it is Laccaria ochropurpurea, lovely colors just a few footsteps from the Lobster mushroom above so we are still under young birch on a overgrown pathway.

Last photo of the day before reaching the car, growing around an old beech stump with its yellow spots on cap is Xanthoconium affine var maculosus aka the spotted bolete. ciao

Basketing Boletus

This young button mushroom appears to be a King Bolete, Boletus edulis.

There are lots of King Boletes under these Norway Spruce in this area though there are a few other boletes here which are close relatives and quite choice edibles.

The one in the center could be possibly Boletus reticulatus as it is known to appear around 400 miles south of here.

Here is another one with a nice cracked cap. If this is Boletus reticulatus it also goes by the common name of the Summer King Bolete which would be fitting on the last day of summer.

Another young King Bolete.

The also good to eat King’s snitch, Clitopilus prunulus, also known as the Miller and Sweetbread mushroom. Where Clitopilus prunulus appears the King Bolete will often soon arrive in the same area.

Here we see the basket looks pretty fine with these Boletus on board. If you seen a man balancing a large basket of something on the top of his head while walking along the edge of a forest in N.B. Canada yesterday morning, you now know who it was. 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

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