Hedgehog Mushroom advisory

These large young Hedgehog mushrooms are presently appearing in the last week of summer in some of our Maritime mixed forest.

You best go out and gather a few soon before the frost foils them. ciao

Hydnum repandum

Found some glowing good Hedgehog mushrooms today. Here is a look at a half pounder.

View of the spiny teeth on the underside of the cap.

The cap has lots of splitting which gives it a certain character.

Here is what I mean by glowing good as they really stand out from a far away distance.

Some Hedgehog mushrooms in the basket.

There are actually a few different looking hedgehogs out in these woods today. The large red-brown capped (Hydnum repandnum) at the back, the most common in this area (Hydnum repandum var alba) with the light tan cap in the middle and last and what seems least, up front all alone, one tiny (Hydnum umbilicatum). All 3 of these Hedgehogs though are choice edibles. ciao

A Sweet tooth for Hedgehog mushrooms

This is a choice edible mushroom I’ve enjoyed eating for a number of years now though I never seen them as plentiful as I did here today.

Hydnum repandum is known as the Sweet tooth mushroom in North America and the Hedgehog mushroom in english speaking areas of Europe.

Some of these young mushrooms were weighing around 6 ozs so the basket was filling quickly, the cap color is very lively looking and really stands out from a good distance.

This mushroom is very good cooked in butter low and slow in a covered pan for 30 to 40 minutes. I usually remove the soft spike teeth before cooking as they scrape away very easy. The mushrooms will give of their liquids in around the 15 minute mark and then they will absorb them again in the last few minutes.

By far my best collection of Hydnum repandum ever, as you can see a few Lobster mushrooms and Russulas along with at the back between the baskets a nice 5 lb Chaga mushroom horn which I’ll do a post on later. ciao

Foray it’s Friday

Starting on the evening of Friday the 27th of September 2013 and ending around noon on Sunday the 29th the Nova Scotia Mycological Society will be holding their annual wild mushroom foray near Berwick NS. Here is the address if you would like more info www.nsmushrooms.org/forays/2013               Judging by soil maps and the forest types in the foray’s surrounding areas this should provide the society with quite a few new species to add to their already impressive list of species in N.S.   Check out their site, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with what you will see there, they offer a great deal and a good opportunity to enjoy and learn on the trails and back at the Identifying tables at the campsite. (Photo above) Dyer’s polypore, Phaeolus schweinitzii

I did a little (Foray it’s Friday) myself tonight and here are some photos, you’ll see lots of mushrooms similar to these at the NS foray plus many more. One of the first mushrooms I seen on my walk this evening were these Lobster mushrooms.

This one weighed around 12 ozs

I walked for an hour through these woods and here are just a few of the ones I photographed in order as I found them, here we see some Pear-shaped Puffballs.

Next a stranger to me, looks like a very dark capped Amanita, but with  all wild mushroom and especially the Amanitas you are best to not guess. I may dry these to sent away for identification.

You will need to click on to enlarge this photo, the white mushrooms far off in the distance are the very common Destroying Angel which is another member of the Amanita family which host many of the Maritime provinces most poisonous mushrooms.

This is one of our most common early fall mushrooms, Cortinarius Armillatus which isn’t very tasty and mistaken identity in the Cort family can be a life threatening experience. This mushroom known as the Bracelet Cort is best left off your edible list.

More Lobster mushrooms.

Here is a large coral mushroom, this may be or may not be a variety of Ramaria flava, I’ll dry and send some of this mushroom away for identification.

Forays are not all about mushrooms, I found this birch tree quite frilling as well.

Here I see a tree with what appears to be plenty of Chaga mushroom on it about 300 feet away with my car visible a 1,000 feet away in the light green area noticeable near the bottom of the tree trunks. You’ll need to click on this to see anything on this one.

So the tree did actually have some Chaga on it but only a very small horn so now I’m heading towards the car and see this very large bright capped mushrooms growing on this downed log, don’t know this one, I touched the underside of the cap and my hand was quickly stained with a reddish-brown watery powder, interesting stuff out here.

Around 400 feet from the car and now I find a nice surprise edibility wise.

Sweet Tooth or AKA  Hedgehog mushrooms these are the largest ones I gathered this year. As far as wild edible mushrooms go I did very well ending up with around 5 lbs of Lobster and Hedgehog mushrooms.

Across the street from my car here are a few lbs of Lobster mushrooms and these are the ones you should not gather for food. For every pound of wild mushrooms I gather for food or medicinal use I walk by double that number of pounds of the same species due to them being in areas where they may accumulate toxins. The wild mushrooms you can see from your car while driving are great for indicating a mushroom is available in that area but again leave them there to spread spores and indicate good gathering grounds.

If you have hung around to make it to the end of my Friday night foray, thanks for the company and maybe we will meet again at the NS Mycological Society’s foray in a few weeks. ciao