The last part of weekend mushroom hunting. Winter is coming, so mushrooms will also go to deep sleep and hidden growth.
This is my contribution to #FungiFriday by @ewkaw.
As usual I went to the forest on my own on Saturday, but since I was invited by my aunt to go on Sunday, and I suspected it's going to be the same place, instead of pure mushroom hunting I went for a sightseeing walk. There is even designated educational path nearby, but I still preferred to go through forest, so I didn't actually see it.
The place I visited that time is an artificial afforestation on top of sands of Błędów Desert.
Shallow river Biała Przemsza cuts through the forest and meanders a lot creating swampy regions. The path I took runs along that river.
Outside of close proximity of the water the forest is sparse and pretty dry - a stark contrast to my usual place - and it is reflected on condition of mushrooms.
I wasn't sure where to park, so I had a bit of an extra walk. Later it turned out that it is possible to drive into the forest, through pretty bumpy road and questionable wooden bridge, but there is a large parking spot where everyone seems to drive to. The place also has very wide and surprisingly flat dirt roads, which are closed to car traffic, but are used by people on bikes and also make it hard to get lost in the area.
Walking through the forest has obvious advantage of coming across many mushrooms (although the trail also goes a lot through the forest, so maybe there is no difference in this case).
In a dry forest the best conditions are for those mushrooms that don't rely on moisture from the soil, because they get it from the trees.
Crack in a living tree is good...
...cut tree is also ok.
The set would not be complete without birch polypore.
I had to take the last one home with me, although I have to admit that they don't keep their pithy look when they dry, mazegills are far better as decorations.
Ah, yes, slime mold on a tree bark as well - poked this time for confirmation :o)
Colonies of puffballs are doing well, although they already turned sticky and buttery inside.
Other mushrooms include russulas and tricholomas of various colors
and also amanitas.
Back on track. There are two wooden viewing towers.
I'm not so sure when the view from either of them would be interesting. You can see the swamp area created by the river, but from afar it looks like a normal meadow overgrown with tall grass in the middle of the forest. Only when you get closer you can see it is actually filled with water.
The river leaves such places behind as it changes course, so maybe it was a scenic view at some point in the past.
Not just the river, beavers also do their part :o)
You can look at the forest from a bit higher point.
The days are so short now. It wasn't all that long walk and yet, when I started it looked like this:
but it was almost dark when I was going out.
But who cares. I can walk the forest even at night.
My "ie" - a selfie without self :o)
Finally, the edible mushrooms.
That forest has many places full of slippery jacks, but they are growing for like two weeks and then they are gone. Once that happens the most abundant edible mushroom there is bovine bolete. I don't like it all that much, so despite them growing everywhere in large quantities, I've only picked some.
While all other mushrooms this season were healthy, some of those actually had maggots, which reduced the spoils even more, hence "(not so)" included in the title.
The two big ones in the center are not bovine boletes. Dev-duck for scale.
They are relatively small, their pores look weird and easily change color.
I've actually not eaten any of those visible on the photo above - they all went for drying, as it is said to enhance their flavor.
As planned, next day I went there again, but this time with other people, led by my aunt that lives near that area. The goal was to show me how to find, identify and pick yellow knights. I did pick them up before, but under supervision and it was nearly four decades ago.
The starting point was the same, but instead of following the river towards south-west like previous day, we went east in the direction of actual desert. Locals use bikes to drive the road and then turn into forest, grab some mushrooms and drive to next spot. We had to walk it all on foot.
I vaguely remembered that those mushrooms were both abundant and hard to find, but if I wasn't shown couple first ones, I wouldn't even know where to look and here is why. Imagine you are a mushroom and have to choose a place to grow. You can pick:
A) juicy green moss
B) thick lichen cover
C) sticks, cones and conifer needles
D) swath of sand
Yes, those oddballs choose D). In above picture it is actually pretty exposed. Normally all you see is a sand that is slightly bumped, maybe with a small crack on the top giving a hint that something is pushing it from below. I also found some big ones hidden under cut branches lying here and there. Here's how it looks fresh out of the sand:
Many people literally comb the sand, with hands and feet or even with actual rake, in order to pick those mushrooms.
Sunday evening is not the best time for mushroom hunting, even less in a place that is scanned daily by people that live nearby, so I only picked leftovers, but enough to have something to show.
The legs are full inside (white, not yellow like some poisonous lookalike), but they are also hard and not too good (although some people use them when they marinate the mushrooms). Too bad I didn't know it beforehand, I'd leave them in the forest. Oh well, at least I can show you their important identification feature - the bulb on the root of the leg with no volva. Legs are also usually bent, with no cortina/ring.
The sand is all over and inside, so they need solid bath. Only after first scrub their true color is visible.
It beats me why they are called "zieleniatka" in Polish (from zielony = green) - where the hell is it any green?
Second wash in warm salt water to remove sand from the gills.
After that cut them to small pieces, put in a pot, cover with water and cook for an hour (they remain firm despite long processing). Half way through that process I've also added couple other mushrooms I had - porcini, slippery jacks and boletes. All turned into mushroom sauce.
Slugs had their fill on this one, but hey, I'm not going to leave porcini behind.
To be honest I can't recommend yellow knights. There are hard to find, unless you know the place, there are very poisonous lookalikes, and the real ones are not too tasty, except when marinated. For the latter I don't even need to pick them, as my aunt makes enough for whole extended family :o)