365 Urban Species. #203: Chicken Mushroom

[urbpan]

Photos by urbpan. Location: The Riverway, at the base of a red oak.

Urban species #203: Chicken mushroom Laetiporus cincinnatus

A word about the scientific nomenclature of this species. Currently, molecular identification techniques are causing a revolution in mycology. Mushrooms that are familiar among those who collect and eat them, are turning out to be complexes of species that have different ecologies. The chicken mushroom is one of these. Mycologist Tom Volk advocates using the name cincinnatus for those chicken mushrooms that have a white spore-bearing surface (as opposed to yellow) and grow from the base of the tree they are feeding on. The urban-ness of the species name is, of course, most appealing to me as well.

Chicken mushrooms are among the most sought-after of the edible mushrooms. They are named for their textural resemblance to chicken flesh when cooked (raw, like many mushrooms, they cause stomach upset). When I discover a chicken mushroom, I have to photograph it immediately, before some urban forager harvests it.


The white, spore bearing surface.


This is what the chicken mushroom looked like earlier in the week:

Comments

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

i don't think i could ever get over the fact that it's most probably covered in dog urine. i'm assuming collectors aren't aware or don't think about that!

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Oh yes they do. You clean it (with paper towels or a brush more likely than with water) and you cook it.

Real mushroom hunters hunt mushrooms everywhere and all the time. The nice fellow likes to look in the chert scree across the street from my stepmother's house in the middle of San Francisco. There's often shaggy parasols there. It's sort of indicative of San Francisco that in a dense urban neighborhood where you can hardly park in, there's a cliff face with scree, colonized by escaped roses, valerian, and Monterey pine: and those shaggy parasols.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

despite all that, they're still covered in dog piss. :) it's totally psychological but i can't get over it. not that i'd be inclined to eat them anyway.