Yesterday Rick and I checked a spot where we know Matsutakes come up. We've already found seven a week or so ago. Here's what caught my eye. A mound of duff pushed up and a glimpse of white.
When I cleared off the duff, look at what I found!
I also found a Sweet Tooth Hedgehog mushroom nearby, the first Hedgehog I've found this season.
Gifts from the forest!
Friday afternoon, Rick and I, along with our rescue golden retriever, Duffy, took a walk. Alongside a path we take every day was a fresh Queen Bolete, Boletus aereus. Queen Boletes seem to like colder weather, which we had up until yesterday when the rains arrived.
Duffy came to us from Taiwan. He was living on the streets for a while. He obviously knew this mushroom was a tasty one. He would have snatched it if we weren't paying attention. Sorry, Duffy! We enjoyed it with dinner.
We also found Matsutakes in the same place they come up every year. These were just peeking up from the forest duff.
They smell wonderful - of cinnamon. They grow in sandy soil and I believe they have a symbiotic relationship with Sugarsticks, Allotropa virgata. I have found Sugarsticks, a native perennial herb, nearby in the spring.
We are having lots of wonderful rain. It began yesterday and continues today, for which we are grateful.
Matsutakes, a prized edible mushroom, are up. Alex Kun found a nice haul on the Sonoma coast.
Rick and I found some too, near our place in Anchor Bay. They come up in the same place, year after year. They grow in sandy soil and they smell like cinnamon.
King Boletes, Boletus edulis, another choice edible, are also still appearing. Remi Alexander photographed Patrick Hillscan with two nice mushrooms.
This morning Rick and I found two big Boletes growing on our land. It's rather puzzling with the dry, low humidity weather we've been having. We did receive over nine inches of rain in November, and that was apparently enough for the 'shrooms!
Cece Case photographed two beautiful Coral mushrooms.
Some Coral mushrooms are edible, but I just like to enjoy their beauty where they grow.With more rain, we should be seeing many more of these intricate fungi in the forest. No rain is predicted until the 20th.
Thanks to Alex, Remi and Cece for allowing me to share their photos with you here.
I keep looking for this wonderful edible mushroom year after year, but I've never found one. Alex Kun hit the jackpot when he found this bounty of Boletus appendiculatus, Butter Boletes.
UPDATE: David Arora let me know that this mushroom's scientific name has been changed. It's now classified as Butyriboletus persolidus. To read more about these mushrooms, here is a link to Arora's article titled "Clarifying the Butter Boletes" - http://davidarora.com/uploads/Clarifying_the_Butter_Boletes.pdf
Alex wrote, "Behold the elusive and relatively rare Boletus appendiculatus. More specifically, a beauteous bounty of bulbous Butter boletes. Everything goes better with butter!”
These boletes are found in the early autumn under hardwoods like Tan-oak. All Alex would say is he found them south of Gualala within one mile of the Mendonoma Coast. Lucky guy!
Rick and I found this beautiful, big Queen Bolete late yesterday [the cap is darker than it looks in the photo - it's quite dark brown], Coccoras are nearly everywhere, and more Matsutakes are peeking up under the duff. What a great mushroom year we are having!
Thanks to Alex for allowing me to share his photos with you here.
That's the title of David Arora's pocket field guide to mushrooms. And as he lives on the Mendonoma coast, pretty much all foragers here have this guide. Here are some mushrooms that have recently arrived on our property in Anchor Bay.
First I was happy to find a couple of Queen Boletes a few days ago. They have a darker cap than the Kings, and their stem isn't as fat. They are delicious. When I trim them and remove the sponge underneath the cap, I gather up the trimmings and scatter them outside in suitable habitat - yes, I'm hoping for more!
Also fruiting in abundance now is the edible amanita, Coccora. These mushrooms have a deadly lookalike, so you must be extremely careful with your identification. They are nicknamed "Creamy Tops," as one of their characteristics is a cottony-like white top. You can scrape it off with your finger.
The Fly Amanitas are also up in abundant numbers. I love watching these mushrooms evolve as they grow. Arora will tell you they are edible if you parboil them twice, throwing out the water between boiling. I find them in sunny spots here.
In this basket I also have Matsutakes. They are so distinctive, with their cinnamon smell. They grow in sandy soil.
The wonderful rains have brought back mushrooms after five sub-par years. For the many critters in the forest that feast on them, including we two-legged critters, we rejoice in their return.
David Arora has a mushroom event coming up soon. To learn more, here is his website: http://www.davidarora.com/events.html