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Hen of the Woods? Something else?


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Posted

I found this today growing at the base of a tree -not sure what type of tree but I can find out tomorrow. No idea what it could be or if it is edible or not. Intially thought Hen of the Woods but now I'm not sure. Almost has a licorice scent to it.

Above mushrooms I believe could be oysters.

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Posted

Hmmm. I don't recognize this immediately. But I can say with full confidence this is NOT Hen of the Woods.

There are two species of mushrooms pictured. The small ones with gills look like Oyster mushrooms. The photo loses focus in zoom, so I can't see the gill edges. Are the gill edges even, or do they have a jagged/serrated appearance?

I do have one suggestion about the polypore. It may be a young specimen of Meripilus sumstinei, the Black Staining Polypore. If I am correct, then as this mushroom matures, it will develop into something that looks a lot like Hen of the Woods (Grifola frondosa). The differences are:

1. Black Stainer tends to spread out more than Grofola, which tends to spread both outward and upward.

2. Fronds of the Black Stainer tend to be softer and thicker than with Hen. Hen does not stain black.

Posted

Excellent! Yes, from pictures I've seen it does look much more like the black stainer -Meripilus sumstinei (giganteus?). There was another specimen against the same tree, completely black so that seems to fit with what you said also.

Also, I will try and get some better pictures of the possible oysters.

Posted

I'm not sure about the Black stainer ID. I've seen a lot of those mushrooms and they are usually very white on the ground. More importantly though black stainers stain very quickly (i picked one once and in the 5 minutes it took to get back to the car they were streaked black). Unless these pictures were taken immediately after picking they'd be black. The black mushroom may just be whatever that is dried up from the year before. I don't have a suggestion, but it looks very young which makes them difficult to id sometimes.

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