A Mushroom Hunt
Mar 8th, 2009 | By | Category: Foraging, Hunting & Fishing Stories, Out & About | Comments | 18 Comments |
Holly and I went mushroom hunting in the Sierra Foothills yesterday, guided by our friend Evan, who lives in the area. Evan wanted to help us find two kinds of delicious mushrooms he calls “pinks” and “buckskins,” which we hoped to gather by the bucket given the torrential rains we had last week.
I couldn’t wait to see what these mushrooms were, because I could find no reference anywhere to mushrooms called “pinks” or “buckskins.” Strange, but I know that mushrooms especially have very regional names.
What could they be? As we drove up to the foothills, we determined that pinks are most likely meadow mushrooms: Button-looking mushrooms with pinkish gills that live in, well, meadows. Buckskins? Could be anything.
We went to a wooded spot down a back road and began looking. We saw no pinks when we walked through the meadow to the wood. Not a good sign. Once in the forest, there were all kinds of mushrooms, most of which I could not identify. A particularly beautiful one was eating a dead stump. It looked like coral. Holly snapped a photo:
Pretty, eh? Still, it was nothing that looked real edible. Then I came across the mushroom to the right. It sure looked like it was made of buckskin. I showed it to Evan, who suddenly realized he had not gone mushroom hunting in a very long time.
We turned it over, and it had a spongy bottom, which Evan remembered as being a good thing. It was also grayish yellow, and had a wonderful fragrance that was hard to identify.
We checked the book, and think it is a goldstalk (boletus ornatipes). Only problem? That mushroom is listed as having no odor, and this one definitely does — like a woodsy, citrusy perfume. Really beguiling.
If anyone can identify this mushroom, I’d be grateful, as we collected a few and I sliced them to dry. Most were riddled with little worms, however, so I tossed them.
And it is definitely not a buckskin. We took our mushrooms to Evan’s grandfather, who is an expert in local edible shrooms, and he said it was not the looked-for buckskin, although he knew of an Italian guy down the road who did eat these yellow bolete-looking things. I asked him what a buckskin looks like, and he described what, best I can tell, sounds like a King Bolete, or porcini mushroom. Damn. Now that is a mushroom I can not only identify, but love, love, love to eat.
We also found this big beast. It is lighter in color than the other shrooms we collected, and kinda looks like a giant chanterelle, only the center has only a depression, not a full hole as the horn-like chanterelles have. It sure looks like it might be edible, but I’m tossing this shroom unless I can definitively identify it.
All of this makes me realize that being able to ID ducks on the wing is actually easier than identifying many of the delicious mushrooms that live around our woods. Morels are easy, as are most chanterelles, button mushrooms, oyster mushrooms and porcini. Sulphur shelf I can spot, and lion’s mane is pretty easy as well.
For all I know this pretty-smelling yellow bolete-ish thing is delicious. It sure smells as such. But then again it could taste awful, or worse, be poisonous. Misidentify a duck and you might get a fine. Misidentify a mushroom and your liver could dissolve.
Evan’s grandfather said the time for buckskins is largely past, although he said pinks should re-emerge once the rains end in April or early May. That’s the same time the Sierra morels begin to pop in earnest. We’ll give it a go then, and see what we can find.
From what I understand from a friend of mine who is a mycologist, the season for porcini is 2 weeks after the first big rains in the fall, so November, December. The spring is more for chanterelles and morels. I’ve been trying to get a group together for years to go up to Salt Point in Mendocino where the boletes grow like crazy in the late fall. Wanna go?
BTW, usually find white morels in the backyard here too, though so far none this season.
those photos are beautiful! the mushrooms look like lovely underwater creatures.
Welcome to the wonderful world of mycology, Hank! You passed the first and most important test which is never ever eat a mushroom you’re not 100% sure about. It’s always a good idea to be introduced to a new species by someone who’s knowledgeable (and trustworthy) and has eaten that species before.
The “buckskin” is definitely a Bolete but hard to tell which species from the photo. If you don’t have it yet, pick up a copy of David Arora’s “Mushrooms Demystified,” the bible on the subject. His pocket field guide, “All the Rain Promises” is a good investment too.
That photo at bottom is very inviting. I’m looking forward to the landscape looking like that again. It snowed in Seattle today!
Elise: You bet I want to go chase porcinis! Sign me up.
Lang: Looks like I need that book. The goldstalk in my Peterson’s guide is a bolete, and the book says its edible. I am drying it now. Think I should give it a go? Any thoughts on that big chanterelle-looking thing I am holding in the picture? I have that drying, too, but am less sure about eating that one…
The bolete-like mushroom looks like a Suillus of some sort to me. They are usually edible but not considered delicious by any means.
The Boletus edulis on the coast (Salt Point) did not have a very prolific fruiting this fall. Last year was one of those years you remember all your life and tell your grandkids but not this past fall.
There is a tremendous amount of competition for the mushrooms at Salt Point and with restrictions fully enforced, like 3 pound limits on all mushrooms combined per person per day. That’s pretty steep if you ask me. I’ve found single Boletus edulis that weighed more than that!
As for the other mystery mushroom you have there, it looks like some sort of Lactarius. Did it exude a milky latex like liquid when you scraped the gills?
Also FYI, chanterelles are a fall and winter mushroom in CA, not spring. It is not uncommon to find hedgehogs in March in CA on the coast but usually by this time of year the chanterelles are winding down and about done for the season. Of course the mushroom season in N CA has been a particularly bad one this year due to such extreme dry conditions until just recently and now it’s too little too late.
Hopefully the morels will do better than the fall mushies. Good luck and never eat any wild mushroom without making sure it has been positively ID’d.
Based on what I’ve seen around here (different ecoregion though we may be) and read, I’d guess it’s a pine bolete (Boletus pinicola). Not delicious, but not poisonous.
OK, I have it! It is a Boletus collinitus, which appears to be a variant name of a suillus.
Bottom line: It is indeed edible, if unremarkable. Given its interesting aroma, I think it will go into a mushroom medley at some point.
I’m with Mary–looks like some kind of Suillus (which is part of the larger Bolete family). Still, I wouldn’t eat it based on that photo and definitely wouldn’t eat the other one. IDing ‘shrooms is a serious business and shouldn’t be done with pictures (photos or illustrations). I’d join a mycological society, Hank, and go on a few forays with experts, then start learning how to key them out for yourself. You really REALLY don’t want to make a mistake, especially where you live, which is near ground zero for the Death Cap.
And don’t fear: there are many, many easy ID’s among the choice edibles. You should be getting Boletus rex-veris (spring kings, aka porcini) popping up soon in the Sierra, as well as morels. Have fun and use good judgment!
it is NOT B. pinicola! Never even heard of B collinitis. You need to go get David Arora’s Mushrooms Demystefied because it is most specific to CA and PNW fungi.
Believe me when I say it is of the Suillus variety which is related to slippery jacks which are edible but nothing to get excited about. Just leave it be…especially after hearing you say it had bugs! I’m not saying I’m an expert but I have been studying mycology for 27 years and I know my gourmet edible boletes well enough to know this ain’t one of ‘em! Kapeesh?
OK, OK, OK. I will leave it be. Bummer.
Oh, but they look like such beautiful internal organs. You’re gonna let these people scare you out of a real adventure?
Hey Hank you still alive?
Case in point: Click.
Well don’t be too afraid of mushrooms. The ones that will kill you outright are few and easy to identify. The rest of the poisonous ones will just make you mildly sick or really sick, but in any case you will survive.
This site is useful:
http://mushroomobserver.org/
Here’s an example of how I identified a mushroom using this site:
http://mushroomobserver.org/13210
Don’t eat that mushroom or I’ll kill you!
Don’t eat that mushroom or I’ll kill you! haha
I had an engineer that used to work for me that fancied himself capable of identifying edible mushrooms. He’d had some success over the course of a year or two, which had built his confidence. One weekend he prepared a dinner including foraged wild mushrooms for his wife and father. 4 hours later, they were at the emergency room as his wife began detoxification treatment. It was touch and go for his wife for a while. I don’t recall what he got a hold off, but suffice to say, he buys his mushrooms at Whole Foods now. I’d treat these things with a healthy respect until you’ve got some real experience identifying them.
I have a property in the mid sierras and and it is covered in mushrooms
right now. We are the at the 4800 ft level. I was kicking the mushrooms up
with my foot and wonder how many were edible. I did find morrels in the spring,
but would love to discover if any are porchini or chanterelle.. or even shitake or button???