Velvet foot Shiitake Mushrooms

Between work and tramping around in the mountains, I have been remiss in getting early-season updates on the page.  Time for a little show-and-tell! This will be the first in a series of articles to bring readers up to date on what’s been happening in Arizona the last week in July and first week of August. Saturday and Sunday the 25th/26th of July, I went up Mt. Lemmon with my daughter Megan. 

 

This “Sky Island” rising abruptly from the desert just north of Tucson is over 9000 feet high, and home to the southernmost ski area in the United States. We had good success on oyster mushrooms, velvet foot Shiitake Mushrooms (Flammulina populicola), and a very nice cauliflower mushroom, Sparassis crispa/radicata, which was quickly gobbled up once we got home. Other conspicuous species of lesser gourmet appeal included dog-vomit slime mold (Fuligo septica), red-belted polypore (Fomitopsis pinicola), and witches’ butter (Tremella or Dacromyces sp.)

 

The aspen-loving Flammulina populicola, like its more widespread cousin the enokitake (F. velutipes), is a delicious, common edible with a long growing season. Lots of people collect it and eat it safely, but it is possible to confuse it with other “Little Brown Mushrooms.” If you mistakenly do this with Galerina marginata, you (or your survivors) will regret it bitterly. Here are some distinguishing features of Flammulina to help you collect it safely, adapted from Eric Nelson’s excellent Arizona