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Help understanding and identifying this mushroom


Holaroo

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I'm pretty new at this, but I have been reading about gills, stems, and pores. I have found turkey tails. They were easy. 

Then I found these. I don't really understand their parts. I don't see gills or pores, and they are connected to the wood by what look like white roots. The spore print was like a rich brown color. When I slice one open, the flesh is white and it smells really good. 

I'm close to Kentucky Lake in the woods, with lots of Oak and Walnut trees  

 

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Good guess, Matt. Looks like Lycoperdon pyriforme to me.

All types of puffballs --when uniformly white throughout the interior, appearance similar to cream cheese-- are edible. If any hint of yellow, green, brown, or purple is observed on interior flesh, they should not be eaten. Also, a newly popped button of an Amanita mushroom --when still completely covered by the universal veil-- looks like a puffball. For this reason, anything that looks like a puffball should be vertically sectioned in order to see if there's the outline of a mushroom inside. Lastly, "false puffballs" like Scleroderma species are toxic. These fungi are shaped similarly to a puffball, but the interior flesh is denser/harder than true puffballs. Usually Sclerorerma mushrooms are black/gray inside, but very young specimens may have white interior. 

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I had a guide that showed step-by-step for identifying turkey tails and I found a specimen that very closely matched the guide I was following. The pores looked exactly like the photos, the environment was right, etc. 

I'm very new at this, as I said, and I need to get my hands on a good field guide. I have been going to mushroom expert, but that's only so helpful if you don't recognize and understand structures. I went into the woods again today and found logs full of things that I had no idea of where to even start!

Dave, I just looked up the stereum ostrea and they are everywhere here. The turkey tails I found were white on the underside and had the pores as described in my guide. 

These are some not-so-good pics of what I think are turkey tails. 

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I have looked with magnification. 

I'm sorry my phone's camera is not so great. It has no macro setting!

Thank you so much for your help. I went out into the woods searching for turkey tails because my best friend has stage IV colorectal cancer and she asked me to. I'm going to take what I have to Murray State University's biology department and see if someone can confirm my find before I take them to her.

I am entranced by everything I saw and I will definitely be learning more about this! Thanks again. 

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Holaroo,

If she has stage IV cancer she should maybe consider taking a polysaccharide K (PSK) extract bought from a store or online. This is the anti-tumor compound in turkey tail. Eating the mushrooms or even making a tincture with the mushrooms only gets a bit of the desired compound out. If you want to really retard tumor growth (as opposed to people who take it as an immune booster who are healthy) a purer form of the compound would be better. You need a more sophisticated extraction method (salting out with ammonia) from the mycelium to get really high levels of PSK, which is what is available from some supplement companies. She should talk to her physician about this as well as it could have interactions with other medications. 

That looks good Camille. They have a furry /velvety top that also distinguishes them from stereum. 

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Old Oak,

She is already using a turkey tail supplement recommended by her oncologist, which probably incorporates what you mention. 

I think she wants to make some tea with these. She's undergoing chemo right now and she mentioned it. She is very careful about discussing everything with her doctors. 

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