Found some chicken of the wood for this #fungifriday
This batch was so bright in the evening that it was visible in the darkness. I thought it was potentially too old because of the crinkly nature.
Chicken of the woods always grows on dead trees and logs. It tends to grow in fall around here after rain so I'm always on the lookout for dead trees and logs just in case some chicken is growing on it.
Here is a smaller batch, its a tricky thing to find chicken of the woods at just the right time for harvest.
If you get it too early then you don't have as much to eat. But if you wait too long then you end up with something inedible because it gets too woody. This little thing was too small to harvest just yet.
This batch looked perfect for harvest. I also learned there is a version of chicken of the woods with white pores though I've never seen it.
This particular batch I harvested knowing it might have been a bit too old. I just wanted to see if it was salvageable.
I got this piece that was definitely too old to try and put it on a dead log nearby in hopes of spreading the spores to that log.
The bottom still looked good to spread spores but this batch was already too spongy to try and eat. Best to spread it around to try and farm it.
Here is what the old one looked like before harvest. Eventually it will turn fully white and lose all its orange color. If you see the white ones in the offseason remember the location as chicken of the woods tends to regrow in the same spot the next year.
Now for the poisonous lookalike that really doesn't look much like true chicken of the woods.
These are Jackolanterns Omphalotus olearius where it has the same color but is not necessarily growing out of wood and it has gills instead of pores.
Thus chicken of the woods is an easy beginner mushroom to forage as this poisonous lookalike has gills vs pores. Even though this is easy to distinguish people still get poisoned every year buy just thinking every orange mushroom is chicken of the woods lol. The jackolanters cause a terrible stomach ache and require stomach pumping at the hospital but they don't kill you.
That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)