Help identifying these mushrooms

[Diamond]

Can someone tell me what kind of mushrooms these are and if they are edible

[Dave W]

Probably a species of Stereum, but there are other possibilities. There are quite a few types of spreading/resupinate polypores.

Not edible. 

[Diamond]

Could you explain why this is not edible? 

[Dave W]

The texture is similar to shoe-leather, only tougher.

[GCn15]

On ‎2017‎-‎02‎-‎27 at 11:11 PM, Diamond said:

Could you explain why this is not edible? 

When someone here says something is not edible it is for one or all of the following reasons:

1. It tastes awful

2. It is too tough to be consumed

3. It is poisonous or toxic

To save you some time....bracket fungi...which encompasses all of the pictures you have sent have very few edible species. All others are considered inedible for various reasons.

[Lilion]

I'm very new to mushrooming - started last year - though I did hunt with my mom as a kid.  I can't stress hard enough how important it is that you get a book on edible mushrooms, take a class, join a club, or something like that.  It's fantastic that you have found this board and are asking the question "is it edible" but you don't want to make a mistake.  Even real experts would hate to give you a definite answer based on photos alone and a wrong answer could make you sick...or worse.  Enjoy mushroom hunting, and be careful!

[DufferinShroomer]

Diamond, if you get some sort of mushroom field guide you will quickly see that mushroom people like to slot mushrooms into one of 3 general categories: edible, inedible, and poisonous.

EDIBLE: about 10% of wild mushrooms are considered edible. That usually (but not always) means they wont hurt most people and there is nothing about the mushroom that would cause most people to absolutely refuse to eat it. Note that being edible doesnt mean that it is tasty. It also doesnt mean that it is completely safe either. Where I live it is illegal to send a kid to school with a peanut butter sandwich because clearly peanuts are poison and they kill quite a few folks every year. Chocolate coated slugs are also apparently edible but Im not going to eat one. Probably less than 5% of mushroom species are good enough to want to eat them.

POISONOUS: This is another sort of vague category. In general it means that if you eat a mushroom in the poisonous category you are going to regret doing so. You might regret it because it kills you dead. You might also regret it because although it doesnt kill you it makes you very sick. In general if some book or expert calls a mushroom poisonous dont eat it. About 10% of mushroom species can be called poisonous.

INEDIBLE: This group covers the remaining 80% of mushrooms. They might not be poisonous but they have some feature which will make you not have any interest in eating them. Those hard shelf mushrooms that  grow on the side of trees are probably not poisonous but no amount of boiling will soften them up enough to let you chew them. Other species might have the texture of a slug or a horrible smell. Some mushrooms are seriously bitter and there is just no way you can get one down. Others might be so small that it would take a week to gather enough for a mouthful. Some taste pretty bad. Interestingly most of the mushrooms reputed to have medicinal value come from this group. You cant eat them really, but if you dry the right ones and then grind them to a powder you can make a tea which probably will taste pretty bad but which might have some health benefits.

EXCEPTIONS: There are not very many rules with mushrooms that are always true so you have to take what you find in a book in context and even then be careful. Let me give a few examples. Almost everybody will agree that the morel is right up there in the top 3 best tasting edibles.  Morels are also probably the mushroom that sends the most people to the hospital. Seriously. The issue is that they contain a toxin which dissipates when the mushroom is cooked. If you eat raw morels you are just begging for trouble. Another troublesome mushroom is the honey mushroom. Almost all books call this a tasty edible. The truth is though that the honey mushroom causes about a third of the population to experience a nasty 3 day belly ache. There is a work around though. Parboil them for 3 minutes before cooking them and almost everyone can eat them without problems. There are also some serious issues with some mushrooms in some places. Tricholoma equestre is one such mushroom. Millions of these are eaten every year with no problems. In Europe however these mushrooms have killed dozens of people and many European countries outright ban their sale. No one is completely certain why folks in North America arent dropping dead from these. It may be that the the North American version is a different species than the European species and it just looks the same. Are they ok to eat in North America? Maybe, but I wont eat them. The thing is that it is tough to learn to eat mushrooms safely from a book. Far better is to learn from someone who knows what they are doing plus a book. Let me add one sobering thought then I'll quit typing. I live in Ontario Canada where we are thought to have about 2,000 species of mushrooms. Many mushroom books will show about 300 species with pictures and descriptions. So I can find a mushroom and identify it from that book with 300 species and say yah there it is right there on page 87. But what if instead of being that mushroom on page 87 it is really one of the 1700 species that didnt get included in the book? Be careful out there.

[Dave W]

Also, photos of mushrooms can produce ambiguous information. The mushroom may look like the one on page 87 of Dufferin's field guide (see above), but actually be the type found on some other page. There are a few types of edible mushrooms that are fairly easily identified. Others a little more tricky, and some types occasionally resemble a toxic type. 

[rob]

18 hours ago, DufferinShroomer said:

Diamond, if you get some sort of mushroom field guide you will quickly see that mushroom people like to slot mushrooms into one of 3 general categories: edible, inedible, and poisonous.

EDIBLE: about 10% of wild mushrooms are considered edible. That usually (but not always) means they wont hurt most people and there is nothing about the mushroom that would cause most people to absolutely refuse to eat it. Note that being edible doesnt mean that it is tasty. It also doesnt mean that it is completely safe either. Where I live it is illegal to send a kid to school with a peanut butter sandwich because clearly peanuts are poison and they kill quite a few folks every year. Chocolate coated slugs are also apparently edible but Im not going to eat one. Probably less than 5% of mushroom species are good enough to want to eat them.

POISONOUS: This is another sort of vague category. In general it means that if you eat a mushroom in the poisonous category you are going to regret doing so. You might regret it because it kills you dead. You might also regret it because although it doesnt kill you it makes you very sick. In general if some book or expert calls a mushroom poisonous dont eat it. About 10% of mushroom species can be called poisonous.

INEDIBLE: This group covers the remaining 80% of mushrooms. They might not be poisonous but they have some feature which will make you not have any interest in eating them. Those hard shelf mushrooms that  grow on the side of trees are probably not poisonous but no amount of boiling will soften them up enough to let you chew them. Other species might have the texture of a slug or a horrible smell. Some mushrooms are seriously bitter and there is just no way you can get one down. Others might be so small that it would take a week to gather enough for a mouthful. Some taste pretty bad. Interestingly most of the mushrooms reputed to have medicinal value come from this group. You cant eat them really, but if you dry the right ones and then grind them to a powder you can make a tea which probably will taste pretty bad but which might have some health benefits.

EXCEPTIONS: There are not very many rules with mushrooms that are always true so you have to take what you find in a book in context and even then be careful. Let me give a few examples. Almost everybody will agree that the morel is right up there in the top 3 best tasting edibles.  Morels are also probably the mushroom that sends the most people to the hospital. Seriously. The issue is that they contain a toxin which dissipates when the mushroom is cooked. If you eat raw morels you are just begging for trouble. Another troublesome mushroom is the honey mushroom. Almost all books call this a tasty edible. The truth is though that the honey mushroom causes about a third of the population to experience a nasty 3 day belly ache. There is a work around though. Parboil them for 3 minutes before cooking them and almost everyone can eat them without problems. There are also some serious issues with some mushrooms in some places. Tricholoma equestre is one such mushroom. Millions of these are eaten every year with no problems. In Europe however these mushrooms have killed dozens of people and many European countries outright ban their sale. No one is completely certain why folks in North America arent dropping dead from these. It may be that the the North American version is a different species than the European species and it just looks the same. Are they ok to eat in North America? Maybe, but I wont eat them. The thing is that it is tough to learn to eat mushrooms safely from a book. Far better is to learn from someone who knows what they are doing plus a book. Let me add one sobering thought then I'll quit typing. I live in Ontario Canada where we are thought to have about 2,000 species of mushrooms. Many mushroom books will show about 300 species with pictures and descriptions. So I can find a mushroom and identify it from that book with 300 species and say yah there it is right there on page 87. But what if instead of being that mushroom on page 87 it is really one of the 1700 species that didnt get included in the book? Be careful out there.

Excellent post, Duff. From personal knowledge I know DufferinShroomer to be exceptionally careful on both his identification and research on a mushroom before he'll try/recommend it.

 This, perhaps, is one of the best posts that break down the "hope of finding an easy edible" and the caution involved in doing solid research before trying.

 Maybe should be pinned on the i.d. thread?

 Just thought of an example that expands on the geolocation idea. Years back I did an in house catering. One of the guests was Finnish. She was amazed that I used fresh (and dried black morels) for a risotto, as she picked these with her father, back home. Upon talking about mushroom hunting she revealed that she still had jars of dried false morels. When I brought up the possible toxic effects of Gyromitra she said they were a common edible and had never heard of any ill effects from consumption.

[Dave W]

Rob, those Gyromitra mushrooms (G. esculenta) are sold in Finnish grocery stores, packaged in cans. This species contains the dangerous toxin gyromitrin, which is water-soluble and volatile. When these mushrooms are processed, they are boiled in several changes of water, with each batch of water discarded. The heat helps speed up the water solubility of the toxin. Raw G. esculenta --collected anywhere in the world-- will likely kill anyone who consumes it. 

As for the Tricholomas... T. equestre has indeed been associated with a few very serious poisonings in Europe. The most famous occurred in France (probably most famous because the most information was available). Another incident reportedly occurred in Poland. In each report, members of one family each consumed large amounts of the mushrooms over the course of several days. Each person then was struck by a blood disease that proved fatal for some of the victims. The exact relationship between the mushrooms and the disease is not well-understood. Some ideas are: 1. The mushrooms were consumed raw, and like Gyromitra this type Tricholoma contains a volatile toxin that must be cooked out. Like Dufferin says in his post seen above,  there are at least a few such examples. Armillaria mushrooms probably won't kill a person, but some people get mighty ill for awhile if they eat these (likely ones that aren't well cooked). 2. It has been suggested that each of the French/Polish incidents involved mushrooms collected form a toxic habitat. 3. There's more than one species of mushroom called Tricholoma equestre (or any of the several "common" names). I have read reports online where researchers claim to have isolated a toxin in this species... as well as in T. portentosum and T. terreum. This report appears to have disappeared from the internet. I have heard this study may have been discredited. 

I am not aware of any reports of fatalities associated with consuming raw morels. 

Next Sunday I'll attend a presentation by noted mushroom toxin expert Denis Benjamin (sponsored by the New Jersey Mycological Association). I'll ask him about the current status of our understanding of the Tricholoma problem. I also plan to ask him about the North American "False Morels", some of which have recently been moved from genus Gyromitra inot genus Discina. 

I think the idea of using Dufferin's post as a first draft for an eventual pinned post to address edibility. This is a very sensitive topic... with legal implications. My initial feeling is that including a section called "exceptions" may be questionable, as it is presumably impossible to mention every such example. Although a short generalized couple sentences may be a good idea. I'll copy the content of Dufferin's post to an new thread where we may discuss this issue singularly.

Rob, what kind of risotto do you make with morels? I use dried Black Morels in a version that uses turkey stock, ham, butternut squash, sweet pepper, garlic, onion, among other things. 

[William]

To my knowledge there's only one type of bracket fungi which is edible and that chicken of the woods. Which is really easy to identify and has no lookalikes (if you look underneath it and find no gills). There maybe others that I'm unaware of.

[rob]

 William. There are actually several edible bracket fungi. As mentioned, chickens but also (not going Latin here) dryads saddle, beefsteak polypore, hen of the woods, umbrella polypore, as well as berkleys and black staining polypores. I've only tried chickens, hens, umbrella polypores and dryads saddle. All were tasty and if eaten at a young age well worth harvesting.

 Just saw your location. I have absolutely no idea what your habitat holds as far as polypores are concerned.

 Perhaps if you research your local fungi you may find similar species to those in NA.

 

[Dave W]

By bracket I assume you mean... growing in sturdy overlapping rows or as rigid singles, usually on a log or standing tree trunk. Actually, I think I agree with that. Aside from Beefsteak Mushroom (Fistulina hepatica), nothing else comes quickly to mind. Beefsteak doesn't quite seem to qualify as a "bracket"; it's kinda soft. But I suppose it's not a stretch to call it a bracket. Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus species) is not difficult to learn. It has been confused with Cinnabar Polypore (Pycnoporus cinnabarinus). People who are sensitive to Laetiporus experience discomfort after eating it. I know one person who is like this. Also, it is reported that the bad reaction happens more often with a species of chicken that grows on wood from coniferous trees. Most people seem to able to eat it comfortably. Thorough cooking is recommended. 

Forgot about Dryad's Saddle (Polyporus squamosus), rob. I'd also put this one in with brackets. But the others you mention... I'd just call them polypores. Maybe Black Staining Polypore (Meripilus sumstinei) also fits. It sometimes forms bracket type structures along the base of a tree. So I guess you can say there are a few good edible types of bracket fungi. Looking at definitions, "bracket" and "polypore" appear to qualify as synonyms. 

[Dave W]

I pasted Dufferin's categories of edibility here   

 

[rob]

Dave , as always, prompt and informative reply.

 Regarding the G. esculenta discussion; this took place about eight years back. However I certainly recall that the samples were dried. Now I don't recall what (if any) talk involved how rehydrating was done. As you described, I was aware, G. esculenta has a toxin broken down by heat. The guest, at this dinner, said her family didn't do anything different with G. esculenta than with other mushrooms. Perhaps this is due to a low level of toxin or that their normal methods involve boiling then cooking?

 You mention gyromitrin, is this the same as MMH? The toxin described in my books.

 Playing devils advocate! If you were to par boil NA G. esculenta would you eat them? NO ANSWER expected!

 Funny side story. My Dad told me they used to pick "morels" ,when he was a kid, and my granny would fry them up. Yet when I showed him pics of morels I'd harvested they weren't the same. Show him G. esculenta in a  book and yep that's them.

 I've made several risottos with morels. Generally just a simple risotto to highlight the time of year and the morels themselves. In the a for mentioned occasion it was a fun spring dish. I'd donated a dinner at a Ducks Unlimited event and the bidder contacted me in the spring. In fact we were chatting about menu choices as I was driving back from a turkey hunt with a bird and a pocket of blacks. As we talked I thought what better than fresh local foods. The risotto was made with fresh black morels, wild leeks (ramps) the standard diced shallots and garlic. For stock I used a mix of jus from rehydrated morels and venison stock. Then finished with a chiffonade of wild mint and violet flowers. Just a simple risotto with the emphasis on morels and leeks.

 Although I don't cater any longer, another favorite was morel and dryad saddle risotto with a big hand full of a nut/seed trail mix stirred in. The nuts and pumpkin/sunflower seeds add a nice blend of flavour and texture.

 Dave are you doing a dried morel risotto? I see squash in your recipe, this would be a wonderful fall dish

 

[Dave W]

Yeah, I do risotto with dried morels. The flavor goes all through the turkey stock I use to rehydrate them. The combination with cubed winter squash and cubed leftover ham is real nice. I like your simple morel/leek risotto, rob. The Dryad's sounds like a nice texture addition. I make a quiche that's got morels, leeks --transplanted from the wild onto my property, fiddleheads, and maybe a few asparagus spears from the garden. 

My understanding on the gyromitrin/MMH thing is that gyromitra is converted into MMH after ingestion. Also, I have been told it's the water that is the pathway for gyromitra removal from G. esculenta, and the heat merely helps speed up the process by exciting the gyromitrin molecules. Interesting that your acquaintance had used dried Gyromitra. Did she rehydrate them and then discard the water? Maybe the gyromitrin leaches out more quickly from dried material? Or maybe the gyromitrin exits the fruit body along with the water molecules that evaporate out? Interesting. I'll try to remember to ask Denis Benjamin next week. 

I have found G. esculenta a few times; never got up the nerve to eat it. I tried Gyromitra korfii once... dried it, rehydrated in two waters, and then fried it. Even after all that it had good edible qualities. I don't actively collect it for the table. The latest I have heard is this species is likely okay to eat. It's related to the Snowbank False Morel (G. montana = G. gigas) which has been collected for the table in the Rocky Mountains. Some people eat "Big Red" (G. caroliniana). I found one of these giants once. Didn't eat any of it.  I also occasionally find Discina brunnea (formerly Gyromitra brunnea). This one can look very similar to G. korfii. The two species may be distinguished microscopically... but even these differences are subtle. I'm going to ask about these two species next week. I'll post some stuff here on WM afterward.