Mushroom hunting

No. He was a gas station attendant on North Avenue in Chicago when I met him. Teaching had fallen through, and the season wasn't good for inspections.

so...will you tell us why we should know him?

Dag,

the bluish gone by mushrooms you were commenting on might be a
a blue berzlape (literal translation is birch leaf and is usually reddish), quite edible and berzlape is the Latvian name for it.

Interesting thread. But as Merry Andrew"s tante Zelme used to say, if you the leaste bit of doubt, don't pick it.

red is right, seaglass. i believe it may be the red reishi:



ii found it quite randomly on a wonderful website (http://www.forestharvest.com) that lists edible mushrooms in season in Massachusetts, with photos. That's what I needed ! I recognize most of the mushrooms shown from our walks about Boston surroundings. Weee!

Reishi s good for medicinal tea and has several healing powers. this here from a chinese website:

Features:
1) Latine name: ganoderma lucidum
2) Part used: the whole mushroom top
3) Specification: polysaccharides 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%
4) Description: reishi is that age old medicine cited thousands of years ago in
several texts and scripts as being a tonic for emperors. At one time this
mushroom was specifically used under the prestigious vestiges of the ruling
class, but it has since made its way into the pantries of us common folk.
Traditional and contemporary Chinese medicine admires it as a tonic benefiting
vital energy or "qi", and it is popularly prescribed for a multitude of maladies.
Reishi is a polypore mushroom, growing in damp, dark forests and the occasional
rotting log. Modern demand has forced its cultivation in Japan, China and the
United States which is promising for the wild stands of Reishi
5) Function: ganoderma lucidum can anti-tumor, protect liver, activate heart and
blood vessel functions, anti-aging, anti-nerve weakness, anti-hypersusceptibility,
treat high blood pressure, treat diabetes, is helpful to treat chronic bronchitis
and bronchia asthma, and can beautify (!)
6) Application: beverage, function food, medicine and supplement food

Looks like some past prime medicinal Reishi mushrooms. Were they growing on dead or decaying hemlock? I believe hemlocks are their only host.

Here's another picture:

This is the funky, rubbery one we posted?

So Dag, are we psychic twins? I was hunting for that photo the same time as you and then my phone rang. I hit post after the call.

Damn, I promise I'll always take zoomed out shots of the mushroom culture from now on!

Dang! We must be, since that is also one of the MANY pictures of reishi that are out there.

btw, i do believe it was growing on a submerged log, yes.

The other mushroom we've seen, next to the Honey mushroom, is Chicken of the Woods. Dangit, also perfectly edible.

We should try out talents out on things like lottery tickets.

You might want to make a note as to the location and go back a little earlier next year. Reishi tends to come back for a number of years. You have to get them fresh (before the wrinkly stage) and they go for about $25+ per pound in the herbalist trade. Fresh is more valuable than dried and the larger sizes (they can go 8'' across) are the most desirable.

Yowza! And they seem like fairly heavy mushrooms.

If you do pick em make sure you leave some behind so that they will be there next year.

Dasha knows that trick - I have to learn it.

i ALWAYS leave the root. and remember the location. i grew up mushroom hunting. :wink:

except, where i come from, you gotta get up at sunrise, cause it's a highly competitive sport. within a few hours, the woods are picked clean. the whole nation mushroom hunts.

One trick is to carry around any mushrooms you pick in a basket with an open weave (not too wide or mushrooms fall out) - they actually make mushroom collecting baskets. Mushrooms are always sheding spore, so as you walk spores will sprinkle to the ground. I always step on puff balls when they are in spore and walk around in wood chips to "seed" them for next year.

Reishi tends to stay dormant some years (probably due to rainfall and temperatures), so if you don't see them one year in the same spot you might the next. I have woods I can tromp around in without much outside traffic so I make little stone markers when I find good patches of mushrooms. I also mark on my calendar when I see them. Depending on rain fall, I might check in the same spot a little earlier or later than the time I saw them the year before.

they were right next to a busy tourist trail... probably not the best location, but we know exactly where they were. mushrooms tend to have little brothers and sisters around in the area.

We should keep a mushroom journal. Actually, I guess that's what this is.

A spore journal is a good way to learn mushrooms. Kids usually get a kick out of making the prints. Here's how:

Making Spore Prints

yeah, i tried that with the Honey mushrooms. The spore print was white, however, within a few hours one of them was overcrawled with fat little maggots. Shudder. And I mean overcrawled. Ghhhghgggblech.