Tall trees and Mushrooms

Lactarius deliciosus – Saffron milk cap – an east coast favourite.

February 16, 2017 · Filed under Edible Fungi, Fungi, Uncategorized · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, edible mushrooms, pine plantations

The Saffron milk cap is a mushroom that occurs widely on the east coast in pine forests. Foragers are actively encouraged to pick this mushroom in NSW in places like Oberon. It also occurs in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Reports from Queensland are rare but it is occasionally found there. Sadly, it is not something we see in the pine forests of WA, though there have apparently been unsubstantiated reports of it from the Kewdale area, according to Bougher and Syme (1998). There is another mention of someone trying to establish this in WA in an earlier paper. I have certainly never seen it in WA.

To view one of these beauties I had to travel to Adelaide on a heads up from some friends there. These were cropping up in early February of 2017 after some rain, to the general surprise of enthusiasts there. There were not a lot of them at this time, but I did manage to find this single specimen, to my great joy. Thanks to Kate et. al. for the heads up!

This is what it looks like from the top. Notice the pine needles.

When cut, the inner surface reveals an orange colour at the margins, as shown below.

Lactarius deliciosus showing red cut surface

Some texts say that these mushrooms are not particularly good eating and that the name is in fact a misnomer. To test this out, I took my specimen down to a the barbecue at a local park in suburban Adelaide and fried it up with a little olive oil. Adelaide is so well endowed with such parks and barbecues and I am sure that they are a popular gathering place. On this particular day however there was nobody else around though, and perhaps that is because it was 42 degrees. All this reinforces the oddity of finding mushrooms at this time of year.

Anyway, back to the taste test. I found that the smell and the taste were intimately entwined and that it was a pleasant and unusual taste. It is hard to describe a smell or taste but I kept thinking of vegetables like carrots. This may well have been influenced by the orange colour. The other very distinctive and great thing was the firmness. This is easily the most firm mushroom that I have ever cooked and eaten.

I look forward to eating more of these. Who knows, perhaps they might crop up in WA? Time will tell.

It has come to my attention that there is an Australian native mushroom that bears some resemblance to Lactarius deliciousus. This is Multifurca stenophylla. It has similar zonation and a general similarity to saffron milk caps but it has a latex that is initially white and is unpleasantly bitter. The fruiting bodies are also smaller. And of course it does not grow in pine plantations.

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Calvatia fragilis – another edible puffball

October 7, 2016 · Filed under Edible Fungi, Fungi · Tagged Australian edible fungi, bush tucker, edible mushrooms, Field mushroom, Perth edible fungi

While driving around in April, I noticed for the first time this year some rather large puffballs growing around the place in the Donnybrook area. Here is what they looked like.

When cut open, these revealed a firm white flesh with a pleasant mushroom smell. They lacked a ‘sterile base’ which is the bit at the bottom close to the attachment point to the ground. The lizard skin pattern was also distinctive. If left undisturbed they develop a purple spore mass and break open.

All of these factors together led me to identify them as Calvatia fragilis, which was subsequently confirmed by DNA analysis (97% AJ684871).

The picture below shows the specimen torn open. There is a slight yellowing when it is bruised. It has a distinct skin.

Calvatia fragilis torn open — ***Calvatia fragilis*** torn open

The next picture shows another view of the surface of the puffball.

Surface of Calvatia fragilis — Surface of ***Calvatia fragilis***

I found something similar in March 2021 after some unseasonal rain and humidity. These were a little more aged than the first ones and the skin (peridium) had become a bit more faceted but I believe it is the same fungus. This specimen turned soft overnight.

***Calvatia fragilis*** immediately prior to spore formation

Some people say that all white puffballs in Australia are edible. This is not true as many years ago I found a massive white puffball growing next to a mulga tree in Hopetoun that had an extremely unpleasant smell. When I heated some up it caused us to evacuate the kitchen!

Calvatia fragilis is edible though and I sliced this one and fried it in butter. The taste reminded me a little of eggs.

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Rhizopogon – a taxonomic challenge

October 7, 2016 · Filed under Fungi, Potential edibles · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, edible mushrooms, Perth edible fungi, pine plantations

A walk in a pine plantation in WA during winter will often reveal a truffle-like fungus lying on the top of the ground or sometimes almost buried.

Rhizopogon pseudoroseolus

This is Rhizopogon, introduced with the pine trees and a very effective fungus for assisting the pines to grow. The mycelium from fungi such as these acts as an extension of the roots of the trees, drawing in nutrients that would otherwise be unavailable to the trees.

Many sources report that the species occurring here are Rhizopogon luteolus but DNA results on the specimen pictured above match R. pseudoroseolus (GQ267483). This species, an introduction from the USA is also very common in New Zealand, though the appearance does not appear to match either the image nor the key published by Jerry Cooper of the Fungal Network of New Zealand. There are many different species, lots of variability and many published revisions of this genus so it does make identification difficult.

In Japan, a member of this genus, Rhizopogon roseolus is much prized as a food where is it known as Shoro. The Kiwis, always much more proactive on these matters than we are, have done some comparisons on the species growing in New Zealand with those in Japan and have gone so far as introducing the Japanese species into NZ as a potential agricultural product.

This is not an easy fungus to identify visually and there is sparse information about edibility. My friend Jsun has eaten a species that grows in Queensland and while visiting here he pickled some that I had collected. These are shown in the picture below. He has selected specimens that were firm and had a white interior when cut in half. When pickled, the outside became quite distinctly reddish.

Pickled Rhizopogon pseudoroseolus

I have eaten small quantities of these and must say that they are rather bland. Jsun reports that he likes to add them to stews and so forth and that they soak up the flavor of the dish.

Laetiporus portentosus -White punk, poor tucker indeed

August 3, 2016 · Filed under Edible Fungi, Fungi, Potential edibles, Uncategorized · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, Australian mushrooms, bush tucker, edible Australian fungi, Laetiporus portentosus

There have been many reports from the times of early European settlement, all from Tasmania, of the Aboriginal people eating a white’ punk’ growing on trees. It has been widely assumed that this is Laetiporus portentosus, formerly known as Piptoporus portentosus.

This June I chanced upon a specimen of this lying on the ground in Bridgetown. It was quite a massive thing, weighing several kilos and it was saturated with water. That is why I assume was on the ground, having fallen from its position because of its weight. Here it is sitting on my dining room table.

Fallen Laetiporus portentosus on table

Here is another shot of it, this time showing the inside after I had cut it open with great difficulty. I don’t think this would have been possible with primitive tools.

Laetiporus portentosus cut open

You can see that the inside looks sort of cottony. In fact it more closely resembles polystyrene in texture. An attempt to eat a small piece of it revealed that it was about as edible as polystyrene too. Not even in an emergency could anyone possibly eat and digest this fungus. Perhaps the story is different with very small specimens but I am doubtful.

It is quite difficult to get a picture of one of these in-situ on a tree because they tend to grow quite high up. I was lucky enough to spot one by a road cutting near Donnybrook that enabled me to scramble up and take a picture with my phone. Here it is.

Laetiporus portentosus in situ

The fact that these are relatively few and far between and so high up on the trees is further evidence against them being used as food.

It is however widely reported that they were used as tinder and to carry fire. Some experiments revealed that a dried specimen could be ignited very readily and that it would smolder for a long time. By judicious control of the fire front on a smoldering specimen it could easily be kept aglow for hours. Uncontrolled burning of half a specimen lasted about 40 minutes. I made a short video of a small piece smoldering after it had been ignited. A still from that video is shown below.

A piece of Laetiporus portentosus smoldering

Macrolepiota clelandii – after some careful consideration

May 8, 2016 · Filed under Edible but untried · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, edible mushrooms, edible Perth mushrooms, Macrolepiota clelandii

This is a common mushroom around the karri forest and other places during the early part of the rainy season. It used to be listed as Macrolepiota konradii in guides until quite recently until Else Vellinga renamed the group in 2002. Almost all sources list this as edible, except for Tony Young who says that this Australian species is of unknown toxicity.

Macrolepiota clelandii

Its edibility seems to be based on the fact that is was thought to be the same as the edible M. konradii from Europe. It has also been mistakenly called Macrolepiota procera both here and in New Zealand where it also occurs. In reality, Macrolepiota procera occurs in neither place.

Here is a picture of the top surface.

Macrolepiota clelandii top surface

The size of this mushroom varies a bit. In the SW of WA it is a rather pretty and delicate mushroom that will sometimes spring up in the oddest places. I had one come up once half way down a post hole that I had left open. The specimen pictured is about 150mm high with a cap 100mm across. That is a typical size for around my area. Further north I have seen pictures of larger specimens. They don’t occur as a small mushroom. In fact, there are some small Lepiootas that look rather similar and some Lepiotas are deadly.

Update: August 2016

My fellow blogger Jsun and I picked some of these during July and he was able to confirm that they were the same as those he had eaten in the east. I watched him cook and eat some and being thus encouraged I had a small portion myself. I am now much more confident about these. One thing he pointed out to me was the ‘snakeskin’ pattern on the stem which also flares out at the base.

Snakeskin pattern on stem

The ring or annulus is quite distinctive also, breaking up in radial splits and being attached at first, but moveable with some encouragement.

Detail of ring

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Leucoagaricus (Leucocoprinus) leucothites -with caution

April 27, 2016 · Filed under Edible Fungi · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, edible Australian fungi, Edible fungi Perth, edible mushrooms

Leucocagaricus leucothites

Leucoagaricus leucothites was formerly called Leucoagaricus naucinus and with the state of flux in taxonomy at present, it might have another name next year. (10/06/2024 sure enough it is now Leucocoprinus leucothites, Index Fungorum no. 551 ). It is a mushroom of worldwide distribution, widely known as an edible species but often recommended as a species to be avoided because it shares so many features with a couple of deadly Amanitas. For this reason nobody should attempt to eat these unless they are completely confident in being able to distinguish an Amanita.

I spotted the specimens above by the side of the road, which is a common place to find them. The caps are bright white with a satin texture. The shape of the large specimen in the picture is characteristic of this species. The underside features a hollow stem that widens a little at the base, but does not have a sac or volva like Amanita or Volvopluteus. The gills are at first white but darken a little at maturity. The spore print is bright white.

It is always a little scary eating something new but even more so when it is something with white gills and a white spore print. Nevertheless, after much checking and re-checking I fried some up and did a taste test. From descriptions elsewhere I had expected something more; it tasted just like Volvopluteus gloiocephalus. The mature specimen even looks a little like Volvopluteus.

One can only wonder how species like this manage to spread so far and wide. Apparently the spores of this one germinate very readily in a wide range of media so perhaps that has something to do with it. Anyway, another of our introduced species that is edible for what it is worth.

July 2022

This mushroom has had a few different names. One is Lepiota naucina. It was described as an edible species way back in 1901 in an excellent book by American Professor of Botany, George Francis Atkinson, called “Studies of American Fungi, Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous etc.” available on Project Gutenberg.

June 2024

This mushroom is very common in lawns around Busselton in Western Australia, where I lived for a while. It often forms fairy rings.

The chatter in online mushroom interest groups indicates that the name has been changed to Leucocoprinus leucothites. The change was made by Canadian mycologist Scott Redhead in 2023 and this is listed in Index Fungorum. There is no phylogenetic analysis published with this name change.

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Volvopluteus gloiocephalus – a common roadside species

January 19, 2016 · Filed under Edible Fungi, Fungi · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, bush tucker, edible Australian fungi, edible mushrooms, Volvariella speciosa

I was doing some research and maintenance today when I realised that I didn’t have a blog entry for this mushroom, though it is a very common one that I have been eating for 30 years. Perhaps I accidentally deleted it. It used to be known as Volvariella speciosa until quite recently when some DNA studies indicated that it should be placed in a new grouping.

If you are driving around Perth in wintertime, you will see this everywhere growing on roadside woodchip mulch. It also occurs on waste ground. It is not generally a good idea to eat mushrooms that grow by roadsides as they can accumulate various toxins. However, these are so widespread that it should be possible locate some that are growing in a safe spot.

One of the important things to know about this species is that it looks very similar to an Amanita. On the east coast, people have died after picking and eating the deadly Amanita phalloides, mistaking them for Volvariella volvaceae, the paddy straw mushroom of Southeast Asia and Queensland. It would be very easy to make a similar fatal mistake here in the West, confusing Volvopluteus with other species of Amanita. I have seen the two growing very close together and they are nearly impossible to tell apart. It is only when the mushroom reaches maturity and the rusty orange gills become evident that Volvopluteus becomes easy to identify.

Now for some pictures. I had to recover these from an old computer in the shed that I first bought in 2003. That was an interesting exercise in itself, requiring removal of the hard drive and taking it to the computer shop.

This first picture shows the mushroom just as it is emerging. It looks just like the hard boiled egg that I have placed beside it.

Emerging mushroom beside a boiled egg

As it grows, it begins to take on some shape. You can clearly see the sac or volva at the base.

Beginning to grow, showing volva

At maturity, it takes on a classic shape.

Typical Volvopluteus gloiocephala at maturity

The gills, which are white at first, take on a rusty orange colour at maturity. It is at this stage that identification is most accurate.

Mature specimens, showing gills

This mushroom has an unusual and distinctive taste. I often cook it in a sauce that I add to silverbeet and serve it with roast chicken.

All of my numerous attempts to cultivate this mushroom have failed, resulting in a slimy bacterial looking mess. It is possible, as others have done it, so I will give it another go next time I find it, with my more recently installed laminar flow hood.

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Clitocybe (Lepista) nuda – The Wood Blewit – a surprise

August 4, 2015 · Filed under Edible but untried · Tagged Australian edible mushrooms, Blewitt, Lepista nuda

Someone who is enthusiastic about mushrooms like I am will let their friends know about it and when they spot something that you might be interested in, they will tell you about it. So it was the other day when we were looking at a house for sale in Bridgetown. My friends were in a small section of yard where someone had dumped some grass clippings. Spotting some mushrooms, they called me over. To my amazement, there was a cluster of Clitocybe nuda, perhaps more widely known as Lepista nuda, or the Wood Blewit. This is a very cosmopolitan and widely eaten mushroom, that requires cooking before consumption.

This mushroom is an introduction to Australia and is quite common on the east coast where I frequently see pictures of specimens that others have found, but having never seen it in Western Australia, I assumed that it did not occur here, like several other species more common in the east. Edit: I have subsequently found that there is a single record from the Perth region from 1981, but I cannot access the record for some reason. Too old perhaps.

The particular specimens that were growing from the grass clippings were rather aged, though there were some new buttons starting up. In the image below you can see both.

Clitocybe nuda in grass clippings.

I have overturned the mature specimens to show the purple colour of the gills. You can just see a purple button emerging at about 5:30. (sort of, sorry about the image quality, I had to use my phone). Here is a close-up of one of the buttons in the pile.

Button of Clitocybe nuda

Because these specimens were too old, it was not possible to consider eating them. I am currently in the process if trying to get a clone going from one of those little buttons though.

Edit. I visited the site about a week later and the little button had grown into a small but fully formed mushroom. I think that these are some of the prettiest mushrooms around. When cut, the stem showed a purple colour similar to the gills.

There are some other purple mushrooms around that one might easily mistake for this one. These belong to the genus Cortinarius and it would be most unwise to eat any of them. The one the springs immediately to mind is Cortinarius archeri. There are two main differences between Cortinarius and this mushroom. The first is that Cortinarius always grows in association with a tree. It is mycorrhizal. These specimens are quite clearly growing from the grass clippings where the mycelium could be seen reaching down into the pile, however. The second is that Cortinarius has a rusty orange spore print (see below). These had a rather pale spore print (it was a very faint print because of the age) but is was clearly not rusty orange. The orange colour of Cortinarius can also be seen in the gills as they mature and as a deposit on the stem, where the remains of a membrane is evident. Prue also talks about this type of confusion on her blog. She is possibly referring to Cortinarius austroviolaceus which is the Australian version of C. violaceus.

Cortinarius archeri

Another couple of purple capped mushrooms are Leucopaxillus lilacinus and Russula clelandii.

Though I haven’t eaten this one, my friend Fiona over at WhereFishSing has reported her experience with it, which anyone interested might like to read.

Now that I know that these are around, I am hoping to find more of them. And if anyone comes across some little purple button mushrooms growing in their compost or grass clippings, keep and eye on them and please let me know about it.

If I manage to get this into culture, I will post some further images.

As a footnote, there are several other species related to this one growing on the east coast though they are smaller.

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Amanita muscaria – just for the hell of it

June 2, 2015 · Filed under Fungi, Potential edibles

This mushroom needs no introduction, although most people in Western Australia will not have encountered it in the wild. In fact, the first confirmed occurrence of this mushroom in WA was only comparatively recently in 2009. See First record of Amanita muscaria in Western Australia.

That paper expresses some concern about this spreading to pine plantations in WA, where I in fact first encountered it. Unlike the situation in other states, this fungus was not purposely introduced into pine plantations. It has been demonstrated to be capable of transferring to many of our native trees in SW WA under laboratory conditions, which is of some concern to mycologists it seems. Since the initial sighting, it has been recorded in many places from Perth to Augusta.

Note: May 2016

I am watching this spread through the pine forest where I first encountered it and I have found it invading one section of the pines in the local arboretum. It is apparently common around Margaret River

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I have known for some time that this mushroom was edible if treated appropriately, so with some specimens in my hand, I decided to research the topic. My research yielded a paper by Rubel and Arora.

They point out the wide cultural bias against eating this mushroom and point out that the toxic components are water soluble. They suggest a technique of boiling the thinly sliced mushroom in a saline solution for 15 minutes.

In contrast to that paper, Debbie Viess has published several papers that vehemently oppose the concept of eating this mushroom, though by her own admission, she has tried it.

After reading what was available, it seemed to me that the Viess papers really served to reinforce the cultural bias suggested by Rubel and Arora. The suggested boiling regime did not seem overly complex as suggested by Viess, and discarding the water didn’t seem like too much of a burden. So I decided to conduct my own investigation.

Erring on the side of caution, I cut up a single cap into slices of 3 to 4 mm thickness and boiled them for 15 minutes in salted water. I then drained them and repeated the procedure, finally rinsing the slices in cold water. After this treatment, there was no red colour remaining, and the slices were of limp, unappealing appearance. However, I fried them up in a little butter/oil mix until they were slightly brown and found them to be quite tasty.

What troubled me was the lack of actual data regarding the rate of removal of the toxins, so I decided to do my own investigation. It seemed to me that if the toxins are readily water soluble, then one might expect to see some change in the conductivity of the extraction solution. So I sliced up a single cap, weighing 45g and placed it in 1 litre of water. The conductivity immediately rose from 31 microSiemens to 60 microSiemens. I then began to heat the combination until it boiled and maintained it at a steady boil for 3o minutes, allowing it to rest for a further 30 minutes. During this procedure, I took 10 ml samples with a plastic syringe and added them to 100ml of cold water, measuring the conductivity of the resultant solution. From this I could calculate the conductivity of the hot water solution. I repeated this exercise with another cap of 40g weight which I pulverised with a blender for 2 minutes. My results are shown below.

The blue line shows the conductivity of the solution for the case of sliced caps and the red line shows the result for the pulverised caps. The higher starting point for the pulverised caps shows that the finer particle size provided more rapid leaching. This indicates that diffusion of the soluble components from the mushroom mass is rate controlling. Hence the need for thin slicing and boiling.

I had no means of determining the actual amount of soluble toxin in the solution, but since these toxins are highly soluble, I expect that they would follow the trend with the total soluble components. It would seem that a photometric measurement in the deep ultraviolet region at 254nm would be needed to follow the amount of ibotenic acid and muscimol in the solution.

I should note that I have not taken into account the lowering of the volume of the boiling water during the extraction process. Because of this, my readings are higher than they should be. Despite this, they do show that there is a fairly rapid increase in extraction in the first 15 minutes followed by a reduction in the extraction rate.

From my point of view it would be preferable for someone better equipped than myself to conduct experiments along these lines and to publish the results than to go to the extraordinary lengths that Ms. Viess has gone to in the way propagating fear of the unknown. In any case, I can report that I have consumed about 10 grams of the boiled slices without any ill effect whatever.

I wonder how the kangaroo that took the nibble out the specimen pictured above is feeling?

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PS There is a description of what happened to some people who only boiled the mushrooms for 3 minutes at this link.

Prue in Tasmania reports pickling these. She has given a link below.

Debbie Viess has taken the time to add a comment below as well.

May 2025

These mushrooms are everywhere at the moment. This being the case, I have taken the time to do a spore measurement. The spores average 9.1 x 6.6 microns. These spores are stained with Melzer’s.

Amanita muscaria spores

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Agaricus osecanus(?)- Giant horse mushroom, giant disappointment

June 2, 2015 · Filed under Fungi, Inedibles and look-alikes

I found this monster growing at the base of a eucalyptus tree in Bridgetown. It was almost buried, rather like Agaricus bitorquis. Although I have called it Agaricus osecanus, that is a fairly loose term, referring to a group of similar mushrooms. I am using Arora as a guide.

I first found these during Spring, and then again in Autumn. The most distinctive feature of them is the huge diameter of the stem. As you can see, it is a handful. In fact the specimen above appears to be three individuals fused together and it had dried out a little and cracked so that it was in danger of falling apart. The flesh however was quite firm.

I was quite excited when I found such a large mushroom that was clearly an Agaricus of some sort and therefore likely to be edible. I thought that I would take a culture of it as soon as a I could. However, the smell was not like any other member of the genus that I have ever encountered. A friend described it as ‘earthy’ but I found it simply ‘less than attractive’.

Before going to the trouble of culturing it, I decided to do a small taste test. To this end, I cut some small slices (no colour change) and fried them in a little butter/oil. My friend and I both tasted it and though the initial taste seemed ok, we had both spat it out within 5 seconds. It tasted terrible. Hard to describe exactly, but I found it to have a floury taste. Certainly not something that you would want to swallow.

So, for me this represents a fourth grouping within Agaricus, based mainly on the smell. The other three categories are mushroom (octenol) smell, almond smell and phenol smell. I can’t put a description to this smell, but it does not fit into any of the other three categories. `

Such a shame. It was massive and had lovely white firm flesh.

Ah well.

Note: May 2016

I had hoped to get another specimen of this and send it off for dna testing, but this year someone came along and not only smashed them up, but ripped off all the loose bark of the tree whose base it was growing at. Such a senseless act and now we may never know what this was.

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