No matter how easy it is to go to the store or the market at any time of the year and buy mushrooms there, it is impossible to seduce a real hunter of forest wealth with basement oyster mushrooms and champignons. Comparing a porcini mushroom or boletus with their “bonded” congeners is like putting a frozen broiler chicken and a fresh homemade cockerel on one level. However, not everyone can boast of impeccable knowledge regarding the gifts of the forest, and especially not everyone will say what edible mushrooms look like. Given the fact that more than 200 species of mushrooms are found on the territory of our country, information on the most common of them will be quite useful for many.
Life-worth mistake
Having gone to the forest only once or twice, it is impossible to remember absolutely all types of safe and poisonous mushrooms. In addition, for beginners in collecting data on nature representatives, the difficulty in studying this issue lies in the fact that their subspecies are found in different territories. The growth of the same mushrooms and chanterelles depends on the soil in the forest, trees, the intensity of sunlight. In addition, even the same species of mushrooms in different forests may have a different appearance. But to risk in this industry is strictly prohibited. Why is it important to know what edible mushrooms look like?
First of all, in order not to pick up a toadstool. Secondly, because relatively safe mushrooms have their own classification. They are divided into edible and conditionally edible. What does this mean? Mushrooms from the first group have excellent taste and aroma, and their preparation allows a wide variety of processing options (drying, cooking, frying, stewing, pickling, salting). Everyone knows what edible mushrooms look like from this category. These are familiar and beloved by many whites, moss mushrooms, aspen and boletus, mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms.
Conscious edible mushrooms cause a lot of doubts and disputes both among scientists and experienced mushroom pickers. These are morels, umbrellas, false cheesecakes and some other species, some of which have an excellent taste, but only after they undergo a rather thorough and specific heat treatment. If you do not follow safety rules, then in the best case, you can just ruin the dish, and in the worst, an unfortunate mushroom picker will be in a hospital bed with serious intoxication.
That you can never take
Before we tell and show how edible mushrooms look, the photos of which will be in the article a little further, we want to warn readers from the biggest mistake during harvesting in the forest kingdom. That is why once again we recall those mushrooms that can not be taken under any circumstances, no matter how attractive, reliable and tempting they look.
Eight extremely dangerous species from the kingdom of mushrooms grow on the territory of Russia. The most common are fly agarics, pale toadstools, false fox and false honey agaric. The first mushrooms can be confused only with a motley umbrella, we will talk about it later. Amanita itself is a wonderfully beautiful mushroom, its red hat with white speckled scales has not in vain become the "hero" of cartoons and children's illustrations. Nevertheless, the deceptive appearance hides an insidious and very toxic gut.
Even more deceiving is the pale toadstool, which is considered the most toxic fungus of those found in our open spaces. Having eaten it in an amount of 30-40 g, a person is likely to die, because the antidote from her toxins has not yet been invented. It is amazing that this mushroom has a good aroma and taste, which once again confirms the fact that, smelling and trying forest gifts, it is impossible to determine their suitability and safety.
The false fox is visually similar to its edible cousin, but has a darker dirty-red hue of the hat and does not grow crowded. But it’s much easier to confuse a false mushroom with a good mushroom. Therefore, you need to know what edible mushrooms look like. Photos and descriptions of honey mushrooms of the most common and valuable kind are also in our publication.
The most common edible summer mushrooms
Harvesting by silent hunters begins in early May. It was at this time that the first mushrooms appeared - St. George's, or, as they are also called, Mayan ranks. They belong to the genus kalotsib, which has 13 species. Mushrooms are conventionally called rows. But only the May rowing deserves special attention. The season ends fairly quickly, by mid-June. This is a white-yellow plate agaric with a tight hat; it is suitable for cooking, although not everyone likes it due to its fibrous nature and specific aroma.
Midsummer is the height of the mushroom season. At this time, the forest pleases people with its most delicious gifts, among which the following species are of the greatest value in terms of both nutritional and taste qualities:
- Porcini. It has a wide meaty leg, sometimes with gray veins. The cap is convex, tubular on the underside, white or cream in color; the top may have a different color: from light yellow to dark brown.
- Mushroom chestnut (Polish). Its distinctive features are a rather dark top with a green-yellow tubular pulp (elastic to the touch) and a yellowish leg. This mushroom turns blue at the cut site and at the pressure sites, which makes it recognizable.
- The flywheel is green. It is very similar to the Polish mushroom, but it has a thinner leg, and the hat is not brown, but velvety green.
- Obabok. The size is much larger than the cep. The leg is white, with gray veins, scales, elastic and even, the cap is tubular, in mature form reaches 15-20 cm in diameter, its color is usually dark brown. But sometimes it happens and lighter shades.
- Boletus and boletus are also some of the most valuable species. What do the edible mushrooms of these species look like? They are similar to chippings, but differ in a smaller hat, which usually either tightly fits a high strong leg, or is open, but has a small diameter (up to 2-3 cm). Their characteristic feature is the color of the apex. In a boletus, it can be bright red, brick or ocher-orange. The cap has a color from white to dark gray, sometimes almost black.
You can not remain silent about another common mushroom, by which many pass scornfully, although it has a wonderful taste - russula. She has a snow-white leg without a ring and a plate head. Most often, it is covered with a greenish or red skin, which is very easy to separate from the pulp. The minus of this fungus is its fragility, entirely to the house you can bring only its legs.
Gift of the Autumn Forest
Now let's talk about later species and how edible mushrooms look, photos with names will help not to confuse them with grebes. The yield of forest gifts strongly depends on the moisture level in the soil, therefore, their mass collection occurs in July, after rainy days, and also in September and early October. At this time, the days are rather warm, it often rains, which favors the growth of mushrooms.
The first half of autumn is a great time for hunters of forest vegetable "meat". It was during this period that the boletuses and their closest relatives began to bear fruit with renewed vigor, and it was also easy to find moths, mushrooms and, of course, honey agarics. These mushrooms are the favorites of autumn. Mushrooms collected at this time usually go for pickling, pickling and drying. Autumn provides the last chance to make a valuable product for the winter.
Now we will tell you about how edible mushrooms look. Photos with the names of the main representatives of the kingdom will help to collect high-quality forest harvest. We begin our review with a cep.
Porcini
We have already given a brief description of the cep mushroom a little higher, we add only that it belongs to large species from the porcini mushroom genus. Its hat in diameter can grow up to 50 cm, and the leg reaches a height of 25 cm. It is extremely difficult to meet such a giant, because the white mushroom, which is often called boletus, is the main goal of all mushroom pickers. He simply is not allowed to grow to such a size - they cut him off young. It is tasty and nutritious, well absorbed by the body and easy to prepare.
An important characteristic of this fungus is that it does not change its color either during cleaning and separation into parts, or later, when it is cooked. It is best to cook soups, sauces from boletus, it is tasty and attractive in dried form.
Everyone is familiar with his appearance, and this is good, because you need to know what edible mushrooms look like in the forest so as not to collect inedible specimens. Yes, we did not make a reservation, there is a representative of the kingdom from the genus Tilopilus, which is very similar to boletus, but unsuitable for food.
This is the so-called bile fungus, or mustard. Its main difference from boletus is the pinkish color of the tubes under the hat, also this color appears at the places of cuts. Note that the mustard is not poisonous, but extremely unpleasant, because by itself it is tasteless, once in the same pan with other mushrooms, it will hopelessly ruin the whole dish.
Butterflies
Under this name, a whole genus of mushrooms is combined, including about 40-50 species. Three of them are mainly popular: larch, yellow (ordinary) and yellow-brown oiler. The latter is most attractive in appearance; it looks a bit like a Polish mushroom, but, alas, does not have any special taste. He has a yellow stocky leg, a burgundy hat is covered with mucus only during heavy rains, it has a tubular flesh of an ocher hue.
Larch and yellow oiler are more valued by mushroom pickers, regardless of how they feel and look. Edible mushrooms, moreover, they are very tasty. Having cleaned the slippery skin from the hat, they can be fried, boiled and pickled.
Ryadovka
This type of mushroom can be harvested from April, when May rowing appears, and until November. True, from mid-June, the May species has not been seen, it is replaced by later relatives:
- crowded rowing;
- red row;
- purple row;
- fused rowfish.
They relate to relatively safe mushrooms. What do edible row mushrooms look like? They have common structural features. The mushroom has a small hat with very frequent plates and a dense leg thickening to the base. They grow on well-fertilized soils, usually by large families (rows, concentric (witch) rings). In this they differ from some similar toadstools similar to them. Between themselves, they are quite different in appearance.
So, the crowded rowing has a grayish-yellow hat. The leg in the upper part is white, and near the base is gray. It is considered the most delicious, so we suggest looking at this view in the photo. What do edible mushrooms of rowaning of other species look like? The fused rowing has a white hat. The caps of individual mushrooms often merge into one, and this is what their name is associated with. Violet ryadovka is distinguished by a beautiful top of purple color, due to which in some countries it is considered poisonous. It belongs to edible mushrooms, but requires careful heat treatment. The same applies to the red row, it looks pretty, it has a beautiful scaly head of burgundy color and a burgundy yellow leg. However, the taste of the mushroom is not the best.
Mushroom umbrella
Despite the appearance of umbrella mushrooms, there are edible representatives among them, moreover, some species are considered delicious. This representative of forest vegetation has a noticeable configuration: it has a thin brown leg, which is covered from top to bottom with small scales. The hat may differ depending on the type; a tubercle crowns its top. In food, you can eat a variegated mushroom (large), elegant and blushing.
Honey mushrooms are great guys
Honey mushrooms are rightly considered the most dubious autumn mushrooms. Not because they are tasteless or poisonous, but because they have many doubles, and quite dangerous ones. What do edible mushrooms look like? A photo of the mushrooms is presented below. The most common honey mushrooms are autumn, summer and meadow. The first two species are considered parasitic fungi that can kill a strong healthy tree in 5-6 years, grow in colonies. They have a long and thin leg, often covered with brown spots, it is fibrous, and therefore it is rarely eaten. To know what edible mushrooms look like, you need to carefully study the appearance of their hats. It is lamellar, usually small, convex, with the edges bent down, in some species it reaches 20 cm in diameter.
Meadow honey mushrooms are much smaller. The hat grows up to a maximum of 8 cm in diameter; it has a light brown or buffy color. The leg is thin and tall.
