Matsutake mushrooms, highly valued for their unique aroma and culinary applications, can be identified by several key features: Together, these characteristics are essential for accurately identifying matsutake mushrooms in the wild. The Pacific matsutake’s current scientific name is Tricholoma murrillianum. Until 2017 it was known as Tricholoma magnivelare, a name that belongs to a separate…
I just finished the first version of a PNW Boletes illustration. It sorts our boletes into general groups by genus, which should help simplify things. Beginners interested in edible boletes should start with Boletus, the king boletes, which are common, tasty, and among the easier boletes to identify. The admirable bolete (Aureoboletus mirabilis) is another…
One of the things we are learning to accept with dry summers is annual forest fires. This image was taken on Saturday from Mount Erie in Anacortes. The camera filter exaggerated the sepia tones but I think it still captures the apocalyptic feel outside over the past few days. Where is all of this smoke…
Lesson Plans for Mushrooms There has been an increasing level of interest among educators for lesson plans or curricula related to mushrooms and the fungal kingdom. I have started creating lesson plans targeting middle school students and will begin sharing by this fall. In the meantime, I have a list of what I feel are…
Toadstool is an informal, folk term for a mushroom, usually one with an umbrella-like cap on a central stem, and often one that is inedible or poisonous. It has no scientific meaning and does not refer to any specific mushroom or group of mushrooms. Since about 1800 the word has been “popularly restricted to poisonous…
Learning to forage and identify mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest takes time. I would like to share some of my favorite sites and apps to help speed up your learning. Even experienced mushroom foragers would likely find a few surprises in here. The best time to pick mushrooms Chanterelles, boletes, morels, and other edible mushrooms…
A group of us met up in the Lake Wenatchee area on Saturday to look for spring kings (Boletus rex-veris). Both morels and spring kings are found predominently in the eastern Cascades. Morels are the first to show up in early May and boletes later in the month and into June or even July at…
Overview One of the best places to search for morels is 1 year-old burn areas. This large 2021 burn is 20 miles west of Naches, WA. In the past week or two, low elevation areas around the burn finally started to fruit. Members are invited to meet up in the area this weekend (May 21-22)…
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