Category: Mushroom

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Beautiful cluster of Reishi mushrooms

Here we have a photo of a beautiful cluster of Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) mushrooms growing on a very short tree stump in our yard.

Reishi mushroom can grow into many unusual and often mystical shapes.

Beautiful cluster of Reishi mushrooms on small tree stump.

(click to enlarge)

The Reishi mushroom is a highly desired medicinal mushroom and has been consumed, mostly as tea, for at least two thousand years in China where it is called lingzhi. It has sometimes been refered to as the “Mushroom of immortality”.

I find the best way to process wild Reishi mushrooms is to slice them into thin sections while they are still moist since dried reishi mushrooms are very woody.

Once sliced I dry them and keep to use for tea, which I make by gently boiling/simmering them in water.

It is also possible to get an double extraction by taking the leftover tea mushroom slices and soaking them in alcohol to make a tincture. The tea and tincture contain different medicinal compounds.

As always when taking wild plants or fungi please leave some in place to repopulate the area.

Thanks for visiting!
Jim

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The beautiful Caesar mushroom

In the summer these beautiful mushrooms pop up in our front yard. They are the “American Caesar’s Mushroom” Amanita jacksonii and are very close relatives of the European Caesar’s mushroom Amanita caesarea .

 

 

American Caesar's mushroom (Amanita jacksonii). (6/11/2015)

(click to enlarge)

This unusual mushroom looks like it hatched from an egg.

The genus Amanita is well known for its poisonous species such as Amanita muscaria (the fly agaric mushroom) but the Caesar mushroom and its relatives are edible.

I find the taste quite mild but not interesting enough to eat often. (Please don’t eat any wild mushroom unless you are absolutely certain it is edible.)

Amanita jacksonii is mycorrhizal with oak and pine trees and covers the fine tree roots with mycelium (mushroom tissue). The tree supplies sugars to the mushroom and the mushroom provides minerals to the tree root so they both benefit from the relationship.

I will post more mushroom images in the near future

Thanks for visiting,
Jim

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