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Bittersweet Hedgehog Story


Brook

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Well it has been warm lately and very, very dry..... today there is the chill of fall in the air and grey clouds filling the sky.... and being one of the few who wish for rain here and there, I have visions of fall mushroom hunting in my future!

Since there is not much point to go hunting, I thought I would share my bittersweet hedgehog story:

I have read about many more species of mushrooms than I have collected myself, so when I saw my first hedgehog mushroom, I immediately knew what it was, and that it was considered a choice edible!

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I only found a couple of small specimens, however it was enough to cook up a sample to see if I liked them!

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Then I came across this mushroom:

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When I picked it... low and behold, the underside of the cap had teeth! Was this another kind of hedgehog that I could fry up when I got home??? My excitement grew as I found several, nice meaty specimens that were maggot free!

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Story to be continued... my picture uploads are no longer working??? (it says Error: This upload failed)

I will try again later.....

(Not sure what the problem is but - no, they are not too big in size)

.... okay, darn thing still isn't working, but I have a solution!

.... conclusion forthcoming ....

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It was after this when I found yet ANOTHER tooth fungus. This one was pretty big, multi-lobed, and smelled (strongly) like CURRY!

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Well when I got them all home, I decided to complete my identifications. The light colored ones were a dead give away, and I felt confident in eating them!

Next was on to the large multi-lobed curry smelling specimen... and darn it all to heck, I just can’t seem to key it out properly! Oh, well – I just took VERY detailed pictures, and set it up to obtain a spore print (result: cinnamon). I could work on my ID during the winter because I did not intend to eat it regardless of the ID because it had worms. (Let me know if you would like to see the more detailed pics, and I will post)

Then I got to work on the smaller brown toothed “hedgehogs”... I cleaned them up, discarded a few with worms, and laid them nicely on my work bench in the garage.

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I grabbed my book and went to work keying them out... it did not take me long to get to the instructions to “chew a small piece of the cap”.... oh my, it was SOOOO bitter, clearly inedible!!!! Awe, my poor heart sank with disappointment! I still tried to key it out, but none of the species in my guide seemed to EXACTLY match my specimens. You can’t really see it from the picture but the young specimens have a light purpley color to the cap & stalks. Any ideas?

It must have been the right conditions for toothed fungus, as this was the same trip that I also discovered a ‘Fragrant Hydnellum’ outlined in my previous post here:

So I cooked up the edibles I found, along with some stuffed zucchini flowers from my garden to go with brook trout for dinner, thus concluding my bittersweet hedgehog story.

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Looks like Tasso has pointed you in the right direction, Brook. Those brown tooth mushrooms are likely some species of Sarcodon. Most of these types are bitter/inedible. But there are some brown/scaly tooth mushrooms that are collected for the table in western parts of NA. I think Mary may know a few things about the Hawk's Wings, as they are called.

Good thing you tasted those mushrooms before adding them to a meal!

What kind(s) of Russulas are seen in the photo?

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ok, I fixed the photo issue but people...you MUST keep your file sizes to 2MB or LESS or else your photos will be deleted. I just deleted a bunch of pics that were all well over 3 MB and that is ridiculous. Keep em small or use Photobucket. Thanks and have fun picking out there. I'm on my way to search for hens in the morning. I'll be gone a week or so so behave! happydance.gif

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Looks like Tasso has pointed you in the right direction, Brook. Those brown tooth mushrooms are likely some species of Sarcodon. Most of these types are bitter/inedible. But there are some brown/scaly tooth mushrooms that are collected for the table in western parts of NA. I think Mary may know a few things about the Hawk's Wings, as they are called.

Good thing you tasted those mushrooms before adding them to a meal!

What kind(s) of Russulas are seen in the photo?

Dave: Ya I looked at the Hawk's wing when trying to ID... that is what I was hoping for actually haha!

On this trip I managed to collect three types of Yellow Capped Russulas... the ones you see pictured above are Russula lutea. These are a widespread edible in Alberta that are fairly easy to identify. They are not the best edible, but make good filler if your basket is a bit light for dinner.

When I go hunting, I usually have my husband & daughter in tow... or a friend. They point out the shrooms for me or just pick what looks like I told them is OK. It works out good for me because it keeps you sharp in making your identifications.

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The outer shrooms are the lutea, then the middle three; there are two slimy looking ones, along with the more golden colored cap.

Lutea are never slimy like that, so I knew they were different...and the other, well it smelled horribly of rotten fish.

I think the stinky one belongs to either the Russula subnigricans group, or Russula sororia group??? I didn't waste a bunch of time on it - it stunk and I wanted it out of the garage! lol

The slimy ones I am unsure, as I did not have a mature specimen to look at, I did not lose any sleep over it.

Anyone want to take a stab? The three in the middle did stain very slightly, and it happened very slowly. Gills light colored (yellowish / creamish / whitish hahaha)

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ok, I fixed the photo issue but people...you MUST keep your file sizes to 2MB or LESS or else your photos will be deleted. I just deleted a bunch of pics that were all well over 3 MB and that is ridiculous. Keep em small or use Photobucket. Thanks and have fun picking out there. I'm on my way to search for hens in the morning. I'll be gone a week or so so behave! happydance.gif

ladyflyfsh, I thought I had resized all my pics to be under 300KB so I could get them all in? Or were you just talking about the pictures in general on this site? I spent a fair bit of time fixing all of them so if it didn't work, please let me know! :blink: lol

Have fun hunting!

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Dave: Ya I looked at the Hawk's wing when trying to ID... that is what I was hoping for actually haha!

On this trip I managed to collect three types of Yellow Capped Russulas... the ones you see pictured above are Russula lutea. These are a widespread edible in Alberta that are fairly easy to identify. They are not the best edible, but make good filler if your basket is a bit light for dinner.

When I go hunting, I usually have my husband & daughter in tow... or a friend. They point out the shrooms for me or just pick what looks like I told them is OK. It works out good for me because it keeps you sharp in making your identifications.

post-160-0-43860600-1315924112_thumb.jpg

The outer shrooms are the lutea, then the middle three; there are two slimy looking ones, along with the more golden colored cap.

Lutea are never slimy like that, so I knew they were different...and the other, well it smelled horribly of rotten fish.

I think the stinky one belongs to either the Russula subnigricans group, or Russula sororia group??? I didn't waste a bunch of time on it - it stunk and I wanted it out of the garage! lol

The slimy ones I am unsure, as I did not have a mature specimen to look at, I did not lose any sleep over it.

Anyone want to take a stab? The three in the middle did stain very slightly, and it happened very slowly. Gills light colored (yellowish / creamish / whitish hahaha)

Brook, I think those Russulas that are slimy, and the one smelly one, are all from the Russula foetens group. These types exhibit odors that range from "Maraschino cherries" to pungent to just plain old stinky. Russulas in the nigricans group mainly stain/bruise red, and then turn black. None of the Russulas in either of these groups is recommended for eating.

Anyone who loses sleep over Russula identification is bound to become an insomniac :frankenstein:

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