Last week while away we had a ton of rain back home. When I came home this weekend it was like a mushroom jungle out back. Thought I would throw a few pics up for anyone familiar with shrooms. I have seen on a few TV shows how popular "Hen of the woods" are and many restaurants cooking them up as a delicacy. Pretty sure I had a few growing out back. Anyone pick or harvest wild mushrooms?
ReelFaster Come the early archery season here in Washington State there are lots of mushrooms out. I am comfortable with chanterelles, puff balls, chicken of the woods, oyster mushrooms, corals, chitakes and a few others. I am not a big wild mushroom eater though. I enjoy finding them and being in the woods. If you really want to learn about wild mushrooms, find an older German Gal and take her out hunting. They know everything there is to know about mushrooms! I had the privilege of knowing a couple of them back when and they were a kick in the pants! When I was younger I worked with an old Duffer who was heavy into mushrooms. He told me he was on his fourth marriage. His first three wives had died, two from eating wild mushrooms and one from a concussion. "Oh My Heavens" I replied. Then I had to ask " what were the circumstances with the concussion?" His reply: " She wouldn't eat the mushrooms!"
ReelFaster If those yellow capped mushrooms have a spongy looking underside they are probably Boletuses. There are several kinds. Some are very good to eat, if you get to them before the worms, some are questionable but I don't recall any that were downright poisons
What kind are those Eric VW ? Don't recognize them right off without going down to the truck and pulling my mushroom book out..
Hi Midwinter , Somehow the caps seem more lenticular than spheroid. But then I have never seen a Giant puffball. All the puffballs around here are about the size of quarters or less and grow in patches by the hundreds alongside logging roads starting in late summer/early fall. I have had them in spaghetti a number of times and small ones dipped in an egg batter and deep fried.
We get puffballs the size of grapefruits in late summer. They grow in full sun, usually onoved grassy areas with poor soil.
Too bad. But you probably wouldn't have chowed down on them anyway. Might lead you down a path you don't want to go...
Not so brown gills after all. I plucked one of the damaged ones to see.... Another one a few feet away getting ready to flatten out-
