Mushrooms as our values 4.

I have reached the final article presenting the material from my presentation on 5 November. In the presentation I introduced twenty local edible mushrooms. My extra goal with the mushrooms was to show the whole season and the habitats. I was able to talk surprisingly much about the twenty mushrooms, and it took four articles to describe them in writing. I started with mushrooms from April, and now in the last article I'll open with a mushroom that has been growing since April.
The pavement mushroom Agaricus bitorquis is urban mushroom, but can also be found in "nature". In its habitat, the semi-in-ground growing fruiting bodies makes it difficult to photograph one of its important features, the double ring. So I photographed two of its fruiting bodies in the palm of my hand, which I picked up from under the street trees on my walk to work. You can see the distinctive ring. Good, edible mushroom, but they are always earthy and it's a bad idea to pick mushrooms for food in the polluted streets of cities.

The shaggy inkcap Coprinus comatus is also an urban fungus, but found everywhere in grassy, nutrient-rich places. The picture was also taken in the city. It grows from spring to autumn, but takes a forced break in the hot, dry summer. One of the most easily recognisable fungi. For me, it was the first one I identified immediately after seeing it on the cover of the fungi book. When young it is a good edible mushroom provided that it is eaten soon after being collected. It keeps wrong because of the autodigestion of its gills and cap. As long as its long, straight gills are white and the cap is closed, it's worth picking up and quickly preparing as a meal. It is grown for its medicinal properties and is preserved by freeze-drying.

The fairy ring champignon Marasmius oreades is one of the best known and best spice-mushrooms. One of the ingredients of its special fragrance is hydrogen cyanide which disappears when cooked. However, this is why mushrooms should not be eaten raw! The tiny, fragrant fruiting bodies have a sweet taste due to their high trehalose content. Trehalose is a disaccharide to which you can be sensitive in the same way as to lactose. It is this high sugar content that allows the dried fruiting bodies to revive perfectly when soaked in water. The best mushroom to dry. Although picking the tiny mushrooms is meticulous work, after drying they all fit into a single, tightly sealed jar.

The parasol mushroom Macrolepiota procera is growing to considerable size, yet slender, with huge hats its fruiting bodies are the dream of many a shroomers. The photo of the habitat shows a typical young fruiting body. This is the kind of sight a shroomer jumps at. In good weather years, when there is sufficient rainfall, it starts to bear fruit from May and can be harvested until the end of November. The last time I was able to take some at the end of the eleventh month was in 2019. Interesting that I always find it in wooded habitats, although it also lives in fields.

The giant puffball Calvatia gigantea is belongs in the same Agaricales as the previous mushrooms in this entry. The large white fruiting bodies are edible when young. Unlike most mushrooms, all the spores of the giant puffball are created inside the fruiting body; large specimens can easily contain several billion spores. The puffball has no cap and no stipe, and no gills. This is a giant spore-spreading hymenium in double peridium. Its habitat is easy to find in spring, when its brown, dry, spore-spreading, old fruiting bodies are visible in the low vegetation. These places are kept secret by all shroomers. But giant puffball is not a rare fungus, it only likes to grow in nutrient-rich, dense areas that are difficult to access. It is therefore best to look for its habitats in spring.