Dryad of the North

Happy international mushroom day!🍄🍄‍🟫

From left to right:

1. Penny bun/Porcini/cep/Boletus edulis
2. The deceiver/Laccaria laccata
3. Shaggy ink cap/Coprinus comatus
4. Parasol/Macrolepiota procera
5. Porcelain mushroom/Oudemansiella mucida
6. Fly agaric/Amanita muscaria
7. Chicken of the woods/Laetiporus sulphureus
8. Brown birch bolete/Leccinum scabrum
9. Amethyst deceiver/Laccaria amethystina

The blushers/Amanita rubescens

An edible and common member of the Amanita family (same family as fly agaric).🍄

This one is characterised by its dark brown cap and grey scales, as well as the fact its skirt has small ridges/lines that run from the end of the skirt and up the stem towards the cap. Parts of it exposed to air will also turn a pink-red colour.

⚠️These ones are not suitable for beginner foragers, the Amanita family is host to the deadliest mushrooms in the world and isn’t to be messed with unless you know exactly what you’re doing.⚠️

Penny buns!! Boletus edulis 🍄‍🟫

Even better than yesterdays find of the parasol mushrooms, and I was lucky enough to find the mother-load all under a single oak tree. There were about 40 that were beyond eating(second photo) but still around 10-15 good condition ones!

Parasol mushrooms!

One of the best edible mushrooms in the UK, with caps capable of reaching the same size as a dinner plate! 🍽️

Deceiver (Laccaria laccata) and some crab apples 🍏

Deceivers are named so because they can be confused with a bunch of other mushrooms and they can also look slightly different depending on the environment they’re growing in, so they aren’t one I can recommend for beginners. A good rule to follow with these though is looking for an orange/brown colour, with the gills matching the colour of the rest of the mushroom. The stem is usually quite tough and if sliced lengthways it’ll be hollow.

The purple cousin of this mushroom, the amethyst deceiver, is much easier to identify due to there only being a handful of other purple mushrooms. Again the gills will be purple to match the rest of the mushroom.

Also be warned both the deceiver and amethyst deceiver are good at absorbing heavy metals and pollutants from the soil, so if you ever end up foraging some some, make sure the area you collect them is as clean as possible!

Crab apples are going to be used in some wild fruit leathers.

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Shaggy ink caps/Coprinus comatus, literally popping up just a few metres from the door.🍄

These need cooking pretty quickly or they’ll just turn into ink. A pretty good edible if you collect them before the cap starts to open up and fairly easy to identify! Must be cooked before eating.

Letting them turn to ink and using it to paint is a pretty fun autumn activity for kids though! 🍂

Sweet chestnut and horse chestnut 🌰

To those with even a little bit of experience with plants it’ll be easy to tell the difference between these two, however for people new to foraging and understanding wild food it’s easy to get a little confused. 1 in 10 people who accidentally poison themselves with plants are those who get these mixed up.

Sweet chestnuts are edible and the casing around the nut has way more spikes around it than those of the horse chestnut. The leaves are very different as well, with the sweet chestnut leaves being a much glossier green and the serrated edges much more visible. Horse chestnut leaves have 5-7 leaves coming from a single point whereas the sweet chestnut doesn’t have this pattern.

Sweet chestnuts still need cooking before eating too, you need to cut along the flat side of the nut casing with a knife and then roast them for about 30 mins, then you need to peel of the brown casing to reveal the nut inside. Soaking them for about an hour before cooking them can also make the casing easier to peel off.

Don’t eat conkers from the horse chesnut tree, they have been used medically before but the toxins in them can lead to things as serious as paralysis. Just play conkers with those ones 😂

Beautiful porcelain mushrooms found in Galloway forest park, Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

A good edible once the stems are removed and the slimy stuff washed off the cap.

Also remember to be 100% sure on your ID skills before eating anything you forage, just last week 3 people in Jersey accidentally poisoned themselves with the death cap(Amanita phalloides). Luckily they survived but it could’ve been much worse.

Basket full of vitamin C! 🌸

Smaller Rosehips are from the English dog rose.

Larger ones are from the Japanese dog rose.

Rosehips can be used for jams, syrups and teas. You can eat them fresh or dehydrated too but you need to scoop of the seeds and tiny hairs from inside as the hairs can be very irritating to your digestive tract. If you want to jams and syrups, using a sieve to strain out the hairs and seeds is a good option too.

Rosehips are incredibly healthy, good for your immune system and full of antioxidants. You can also use them in skin care and they’re really good for helping clear up spots. 🌱

Late night forage and finding this beauty 🍄

Fly agaric/Amanita muscaria

Stump puffball/pear-shaped puffball/Apioperdon pyriforme

An edible mushroom that is usually found growing in big clusters on dead wood, tree stumps and logs. They’re usually between 1-4cm wide and the stems are short. The best way to tell if you have a puffball is to cut it in half, if you have pure white with no signs of gills or anything else- you have a puffball. Any that have started to change colour inside should be avoided because they’re only edible when the inside is white and squishy like a marshmallow.

There are 18 species of edible puffball mushrooms in the UK. The stump puffball is the only one that can be found on decaying wood, the rest grow on fields/soil.

Young amanitas, stinkhorns and earth balls could be confused with them if you’re not careful- again cutting them in half and looking for squishy white is the best way to tell the difference, and make sure you have a good mushroom book to hand as well. 🍄‍🟫

Would like the thank the squirrels for letting me collect some of the walnuts.😂

Walnuts are fine to be opened and eaten fresh off the tree, or you can dry them out for a few weeks to make them easier to open. They do contain some tannins, but so do all nuts and fruits, so eating massive amounts can cause stomach upset. For those particularly sensitive to tannins you can just soak however many you plan on eating overnight, that will help reduce the tannin content.

If you find a walnut tree, the best way to see if they’re ready is to make sure the green flesh is already cracking open and then it should peel off really easily. Oh and make sure you wear gloves when removing the flesh because it will stain your hands!

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