Ringless Honey Mushrooms

In mid-Missouri woods this week choirs of these mushrooms are growing close to the ground, their cymbal-like caps anywhere from half an inch wide to two inches each, clustered at the bases or stumps of oak trees or bubbling up from buried wood, and from a distance they resemble "hens of the woods," but they've got gills and separate stems and no rings on the stems, so they're ringless honey mushrooms. Whether they taste honeyed I'll never know because the Mycological Society says, "Never eat little brown mushrooms." There's also a "ringed" version, and a semi-look-alike fall mushroom with a bright orange cap that also grows in "bouquets" like these: the Deadly Galerina, also called the Jack O'Lantern. Edible mushrooms to hunt for now include puffballs and "hens of the woods." A famous mycologist told me he frequently receives emails with photos from people who write, "Can you identify this mushroom? I didn't know what it was, so I ate it." Poisonous mushrooms can dissolve your liver and kidneys. Don't risk it.

Mushroom ID Technique: The Spore Print

Was it an edible "Green Cracking Russula" (Russula virscens) or a mere moldy-looking shroom? If the former, according to the books, it's three weeks early, so I wasn't certain. One credible form of evidence is a spore print. Cut the cap from a fairly fresh shroom and lay it gills down on a plain white or black surface for 2 to 24 hours; when you don't have a guide to tell you whether the spores of your suspect mushroom should be light or dark, tape together pieces of black and white paper and lay the cap in the middle. The spores here left a ghostly white print, as the book said; other ID indications are the cracked, "mosaic-like" greenishness on top, cream-colored gills, size (3"), situation (often found singly, as this one was), convex top, brittleness, and thick stalk. Edible, even said to be good, but not appetizing. And also on the plate were what I thought might be chanterelles, again about two weeks early, but there are many trumpet-shaped mushrooms, some not good eating. These must have been older; they did not leave a spore print.

Mushroom Identification Challenge #1

Mushroom hunters eye every downed and rotted tree on every forested slope that has what looks like fertile soil (indicated by clusters of growing greenery), and the closer to water, the better. Poking around in the woods I saw no fresh fungi, and shrugged and trotted onward -- "guess there aren't any" -- when I was stopped short by this club-shaped white growth, about four inches long, on an old fallen log. It was fleshy-feeling, cool, dry, and fresh.

Mushrooms are I.D.'d more by their shapes and gills and stems and location rather than their size and color; size and color can vary with age or conditions. This bulbous thing had no shape, no gills, and no stem. Didn't have the mushroom handbook along. Didn't want to cut it and take it home; it was a protected area, and I had no knife or basket with me. So I took photos and at home enlarged and studied them, and downloaded and consulted a mushroom-I.D. app ($1.69 at Google Play, and worth it) I can use next time I'm in the field.

This is a Bearded Tooth (Hericium erinaceus), so fresh its beard hasn't had time to grow long and shaggy. Yes, it's edible, but I was not hungry, and it is good mushroom-hunter ethics to catch-and-release for someone else, or someone hungrier, to enjoy. Looks kind of like a coconut-covered Hostess Sno-Ball. Or a white bath mat.