Common Edible Mushrooms

COMMON EDIBLE MUSHROOMS
nature incomprehensible! This is a mushroom all should know
(Figure 21 and Plate 2A), since it is very common, growing in
bright reddish brown clumps out of old branch stubs and wounds
on shade and forest trees. It is one of the first to appear in the spring
and one of the last to disappear in the fall. In fact, it is so tenacious
of life that individuals emerging in late autumn may endure
through the winter, even in severe climates, and on warm January
days they will pop up in all their colorful freshness, leading
those who do not know the habits of the species to believe that the
fruit body has developed in the dead of winter.
The caps are at first reddish brown, later tan, and in moist
weather they will shine with a light reflected from their sticky,
gelatinous surface. Fully expanded caps vary from i 1/2 to ^3
inches in diameter. The gills are white, narrow, and close together.
The stems are from 1/4 to 1/2 inch in diameter and 2 to 5 inches
long, several or many arising from the same spot and curving outward
and upward. When young they are somewhat paler than the
caps and tinged with yellow, but as they age they become covered
toward the base with a dense, velvety pile of reddish brown hairs.
The edibility of this plant is excellent — which may in part condone
the damage it does by rotting the interior of our trees. Basswood
is a favorite host, but it is found on other hardwoods also.
GENUS Lactarius
This genus is normally one of the most easily recognized, for the
name, meaning milky, is descriptive of the white or colored juice
that exudes from the flesh of the cap or gills when they are broken.
In dry weather this telltale juice may be scanty or even wanting
altogether in some species, but if so-called mushroom weather
prevails, one need only bend back the cap enough to break the
edges of a few gills in order to see the bead-like drops of juice
ooze out. Subjected to such a test, a mushroom that exudes droplets
of a white or colored liquid is invariably Lactarius, although, as
stated above, a Lactarius does not always provide this evidence of
its identity.
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