Mushroom question?

[Freightman]

I have a big cottonwood stump in the yard and the mushrooms are growing on it they are large and layered and light tan. Any idea of what they are and are they safe?

[Smoke4320]

Pics would really help

[MarkP]

The only edible mushrooms that I know of that are easily identified are the sponge (morel) mushrooms. I know others are edible but are difficult to identify.

[Smoke4320]

Now If you could just put some in your smelt .. Then your bullets might have that perfect mushroom

[Freightman]

Will try to get a picture posted later, They just started last fall died out during the winter but are now about to cover the stump. Doubt I will be eating them just curious.

[MaryB]

Could be edible, could kill you... ask a LOCAL mushroom expert! Might be Hen of the Woods... oyster mushrooms... any number of species

[bangerjim]

Do NOT eat them. Most wild fungi are deadly poison. Only a very few mushrooms and "elephant ears" are consumable. Only an expert will know. At the least, they will make you violently ill. At the worst, they will kill you.

Pass on this one. Buy your shrooms in the grocery store!!!!!!! Like I do. I buy freeze-dried morills, white cap and portabellos by the pound in several grocery stores locally (and Whole Foods) and use them in just about every dish I cook.

I used to gather morells by the bushel basket back in Iowa when a kid. Fried in butter, they taste like heaven.

[Freightman]

I was just curious not tempted to eat them , they are pretty and doing what I need them to do eat the stump up it is getting like a sponge.

[w5pv]

I have heard of some folks of feeding them BS and smoking them.I don't know anything about them and the only high I seek is from God.

[gwpercle]

Could be edible, could kill you... ask a LOCAL mushroom expert! Might be Hen of the Woods... oyster mushrooms... any number of species

There are also some around my neck of the woods that the hippies would use to get high on. Or so my friend told me , he had a bad trip on some "tea" brewed from them . That was his story to me , told more than once but the whole story may be just horse hockey.
Seems if you could get high on mushrooms every body and their brother would be growing them for fun and profit.

[Blackwater]

GW, around here, some of the druggies will stop by any large cattle pasture, usually at night, and go out and look for the little 'shrooms that grown up under cow patties, and pick them, take them home and make a "tea" out of them, and drink the tea to get high. As you say, some have "bad trips" and I can't help but believe some pick the wrong 'shrooms and die trying this, because none of them really seem to know what they're doing. They're usually just going on "what I've heard." Many who flirt with fire get burned, and it's no different for those, like me, who don't KNOW about them, so .... it's best we leave them alone. We have an awful lot of toadstools here on the coastal plain and swamps of south Georgia, and the only ones I'm even curious about are the ones that grow on old rotten logs and the "deer mushrooms" that pop up nearly instantly after a good rain, often by the paved roads here where the green grass grows. Deer love those things, and will stand obliviously right by cars whizzing by at 60-70 mph., just grazing away on them. Now THOSE have to be REALLY good to them! Even big racked bucks will come out and expose themselves for this rare treat! They're generally small, with roundish tops, and the deer just absolutely seem to love them. Maybe they're getting something nutritionally important from them?

[fast ronnie]

Mushrooms with scales om them tend to be poisonous but that is not totally 100 %. As others have said, you really need to know which ones are safe.

[MaryB]

If the deer are eating them they are probably edible. But taste good is another story... mushrooms are loaded with minerals! Very healthy to eat. I gather morels only because they are very hard to confuse with a bad mushroom.

[NSB]

My father used to say " there's not enough nutrition in a bushel of mushrooms to keep a mouse alive, and enough poison in just one to kill an elephant". With over 2,000 different kinds and only a few edible, you're taking a real risk even trying to eat them.

[NY_Treeguy]

While I would not advise eating any mushroom without a 100% positive ID, surprisingly few are deadly poisonous. Many will make you sick, a lot are inedible or unpalatable, but very few are deadly. The big problem is that the deadly ones typically taste good, have no antidote, and the first signs show up 1-2 days after eating so all the damage is already done.

I just opened one of my mushroom books to a random page. On 4 pages 10 mushrooms are listed. 4 are listed as non-poisonous, 2 as edible, 3 as edibility unknown, and one as mildly poisonous (makes you vomit).

Just sayin....

[jlchucker]

I can identify for sure 3 types of mushrooms--based on what my grandmother told me. Two for sure are edible, one for sure is deadly poison--so poisonous that loosely translated from Polish identifies them as something that will even kill flies. I know that mushroom folks that are really into it can identify lots of different kinds, but I'll go with Babcha's method. It's served me well ever since I was a small boy. Those yellow ones with the white pimples on top--around here no bugs ever seem to bother them, while lots of others are chewed by the critters in the woods.

[Thumbcocker]

We have recently started eating oyster and pheasant back mushrooms and they are pretty good. Shelf fungi that grow on stumps and logs are a safer bet than little brown "toadstool" types. Pictures will really help and a good mushroom guide. Also there are some really good youtube video's on edible shrooms.

[kootne]

Well Freightman, from the replies you got , I'm sure to be flamed. I think there is a very good chance based on your description you have got a stump mushroom (aka oyster or shelf mushroom) Find somebody who has the expertise to confirm them in person. If they are stump mushrooms, they beat anything you can buy in the store. Just slice and fry in butter. Keep the stump watered and they will continue to produce. If you asked me for a verbal description, I would say, " they grow on cottonwood stumps, they are usually in layers and they are light brown in color". Just what you said.

[NSB]

While I would not advise eating any mushroom without a 100% positive ID, surprisingly few are deadly poisonous. Many will make you sick, a lot are inedible or unpalatable, but very few are deadly. The big problem is that the deadly ones typically taste good, have no antidote, and the first signs show up 1-2 days after eating so all the damage is already done.

I just opened one of my mushroom books to a random page. On 4 pages 10 mushrooms are listed. 4 are listed as non-poisonous, 2 as edible, 3 as edibility unknown, and one as mildly poisonous (makes you vomit).

Just sayin....

Two years ago, right here in NY, two people died as a result of picking mushrooms along the NYS Thruway rest stops. Must have been a lot of them growing there. Both cases made the papers and the news. They didn't seem to have much problems finding the bad ones.

[JSH]

I am no exspert on fungi by any means, but know a lot of the above to be false,myth old wives tale etc.
I would suggest doing a lot of reading rather than "repeating".
The gent that mentioned the "elephant ears", I forget the Latin name. They are listed as poisonous in Europe and have caused a lot of deaths there, though there are no know deaths caused by it in North America.
I knew two brothers that looked for these exclusive and preferred them over morels, as mentioned I said knew as in past tense. Both passed with liver and kidney issues at a fairly early age. The elephant ears are known to carry toxins that settle in the organs.
I love hen of the woods, how ever they don't like me. 4-6 hours and I will
purge everything in my system, rest of the family never had any issues.
My ex had an uncle that had lived in Oregon for years, he kept me in mushrooms about ten months out of the year.
There are a lot more clubs around the country on this subject than most know about. Do a quick search and you may be surprised what you come up with.

Dont quote me but I believe the amanita, death angel may be the only easily found deadly poisonous mushroom in North America. There are several that will make you think you are dying.
Then there are some that are fine if cooked and mildly poisonous if eaten raw.
Morels are questionable if eaten raw, depends on what source you look at.