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Rooted Oudemansiella
(Oudemansiella radicata) |
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 Rooted Oudemansiella sculpture, acrylic paints |
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This mushroom has a smooth, moist-sticky convex to almost flat whitish to gray-brown cap 1-4 inches across usually with a knob in the center.
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Rooted Oudemansiella Cap Note the shiny texture and central knob. |
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The broad white gills, distant from each other, are attached to the stalk.
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Rooted Oudemansiella Cap from Below Note the broad, white, widely spaced gills, some of which don't extend from the cap edge to the stalk. |
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The spore print is white. The mushroom has a unique stalk that makes it easy to identify. 2-8 inches long and 1/8 to 3/8 inches thick above ground, it also has a long, twisted, tapering brittle underground part that resembles a taproot, which breaks with an audible snap! |
Rooted Oudemansiella with "Root" This root-like underground stem makes this mushrooms identification unmistakable. |
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This decomposer grows on the ground in deciduous forests, especially around beech stumps, throughout eastern North America, and the Midwest.
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It comes up from mid-summer through the fall. |
 Rooted Oudemansiella Stand Large stands of this species, as seen here, are rare. |
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In America, mushroom hunters consider the cap (the stalk is too tough to eat) just edible, whereas in France, it's considered choice. I side with the French and consider it quite good, with a delicious delicate flavor (don't over season or drown it out with too many strong-flavored ingredients) and soft texture. Unfortunately, I never seem to find more than 3 or 4 of these mushrooms at once, not enough for recipe experiments. |
 Rooted Oudemansiella pen-and-ink drawing |
