Brought home a gorgeous Lepiota mushroom but fortunately took the trouble to look it up. Lepiota is the genus of a group of excellent edible mushrooms -- Lepiota procera (Parasol), Lepiota rhacodes and Lepiota americana, all of which have an umbrella-like white cap flecked with brown, white gills and a woody stem with a ring. All delicious,, as I can personally testify. And, as David Aurora says (his "Mushrooms Demystified" is the best American mushroom book although not a field guide for beginners), this new Lepiota practically begs to be picked. Fortunately it just a little different than the others: instead of white gills, it has greenish gills (due to the fallout of its green spores). Uh-oh! This was the dreaded Lepiota morgani, a.k.a. Green-gilled Lepiota and now known as Chlorophyllum molybdites. And it is poisonous! Not deadly perhaps but a serious trouble-maker. David Aurora says it is responsible for more mushroom poisonings in this country than any other. We didn't try it.
Another mushroom, Pluteus cervinus or the Deer Mushroom, turned up the other day. It has pink (not green) spores which eventually color the gills. And it's edible although most writers on mushrooms consider it mediocre. I decided to try it but, after having waited a couple of days (to make sure of my identification), it cooked up in a rather gooey manner. It might be this character that turns off the mushroom gourmets although I think that if I could find a fresh specimen, it might not turn out so badly.
Eileen Schwinn came over to look for the Louisiana Waterthrush but, alas, we couldn't find it. We were able to sit down in front of the hummingbird tree and see -- what else? -- hummingbirds. At least one young hummer was present and his mother turned up to give him dinner. The young hummers are good flyers and look hardly any different from an adult female but they still like mama's home cooking!
Eric Salzman
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment