Choice edible mushrooms
Johnny Stanley's mushroom
program at the High
Knob Naturalist Rally
helped me put mushroom hunting into perspective. Americans (and
I'm no exception) tend to be quite mycophobic, assuming that most wild
mushrooms are out to kill us, but the truth is that there are only a
handful of really poisonous mushooms and perhaps twice that many choice
edibles in our area. Learn both types, and you're ready to hit
the woods with a collecting basket.
Our guide explained that
southwest Virginia has two main mushroom seasons --- spring (late March
to mid May) and fall. I've listed the edibles he considers worth
collecting below, broken down by season. Bolded species are the
edibles that deserve the beginner's attention because they are the most
tasty, easiest to identify, and most common around here.
Morel (Morchella sp.) --- late March to
May (start hunting when the bloodroot blooms)
Chicken
Mushroom (Laetiporus
sulphureus) ---
spring and fall
Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus
ostreatus) ---
spring and fall
Puffball (Calvatia sp.) --- spring and fall
Shaggy Mane (Coprinus
comatus) ---
spring and fall
Chanterelle (Cantharellus
cibarius) ---
June to September
Eastern Cauliflower
Mushroom (Sparassis
crispa) --- July
to October
Meadow Mushroom (Agaricus
campestris) ---
August to September
Bearded Tooth (Hericium
erinaceus) ---
August to November
Honey Mushroom (Armillariella
mellea) ---
August to November
Hen
of the Woods (Grifola
frondosa) ---
September to November
Before heading out, it's
worth nailing down the identities of the seriously poisonous species
too: fly agaric, destroying angel, false morel, panther, and
jack-o-lantern. The good news 
is
that these poisonous mushrooms are easy to identify and (in most cases)
are hard to confuse with the edibles. If you stick to eating the
five species I've bolded above, the only poisonous mushrooms you have
to be concerned with are the false morel (distinguished from the true
morel by the solid stem) and the jack-o-lantern (distinguished from the
oyster mushroom and hen of the woods by its brilliant orange color and
relatively long stem, and from the chicken mushroom by the presence of
gills beneath the cap.)
I've refrained from
eating mushrooms in the past because there are simply so many species
that my field guides don't cover them all --- for example, this
brilliant orange shelf fungus doesn't seem to show up in my
texts. I'm beginning to understand that the vast majority of
mushrooms are neither choice edibles nor highly poisonous. We can
enjoy their fleshy beauty while out hunting the the five tastiest
mushrooms in our area --- morels, chickens, oysters, puffballs, and hen
of the woods.
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