Small spikes can be seen on the surface of certain types of mushrooms: as a rule, most often such a spiked hymenophore has hedgehogs and puffballs. Most of these fruiting bodies are edible at a young age and can be subjected to any kind of culinary processing. If you collect prickly mushrooms in late autumn, then you can eat them only after a long boil.
Ezhoviki mushroom
Antennae hedgehog (Creolophus cirrhatus).
Family: Hericiaceae (Hericiaceae).
Season: end of June – end of September.
Growth: tiled groups.
Description:
The pulp is cottony, watery, yellowish.
The fruit body is round, fan-shaped. The surface is hard, rough, with ingrown villi, light. The hymenophore consists of dense, soft, conical light spines about 0,5 cm long.
The edge of the hat is wrapped or omitted.
Edible at a young age.
Ecology and distribution:
This spiked mushroom grows on dead hardwood (aspen), deciduous and mixed forests, parks. Occurs rarely.
Hericium coralloides.
Family: Hericiaceae (Hericiaceae)
Season: beginning of July – end of September
Growth: alone
Description:
The fruit body is branched-bushy, coral-shaped, white or yellowish. In old specimens growing on a vertical surface, twigs and thorns hang down.
The flesh is elastic, slightly rubbery, with a slight pleasant taste and smell. Young mushrooms can grow in all directions at once.
The spiny hymenophore is scattered over the entire surface of the fruiting body. Spines up to 2 cm long, thin, brittle.
It is considered an edible mushroom, but due to its rarity, it should not be collected.
Ecology and distribution:
It grows on stumps and deadwood of hardwoods (aspen, oak, more often birch). Rarely seen. Listed in the Red Book of Our Country.
Blackberry yellow (Hydnum repandum).
Family: Herbs (Hydnaceae).
Season: end of July – September.
Growth: singly or in large dense groups, sometimes in rows and circles.
Description:
The leg is solid, light, yellowish.
The hat is convex, convex-concave, wavy, uneven, dry, light yellow tones.
The pulp is dense, fragile, light, hardens and slightly bitter with age.
Young mushrooms are suitable for all types of processing, mature mushrooms require preliminary boiling so that they lose their hardness and bitter taste.
Ecology and distribution:
It grows in deciduous and coniferous forests, in grass or moss. Prefers calcareous soils.
Gelatinous pseudo-hedgehog (Pseudohydnum gelatinosum).
Family: Exsidia (Exidiaceae).
Season: August – November.
Growth: singly and in groups.
Description:
The stalk is expressed only in mushrooms growing on a horizontal surface. The hymenophore consists of soft short grayish translucent spines.
Fruit bodies are spoon-shaped, fan-shaped or tongue-shaped. The surface of the cap is smooth or velvety, grayish, darkens with age.
The pulp is gelatinous, soft, translucent, with a fresh smell and taste.
The mushroom is considered edible, but due to its rarity and low culinary qualities, it is practically not collected.
Ecology and distribution:
Grows on rotting, sometimes wet, stumps and trunks of various coniferous and (rarely) deciduous trees in forests of various types.
Mushroom puffballs with spikes
Puffball (Lycoperdon echinatum).
Family: Puffballs (Lycoperdaceae).
Season: July – September.
Growth: alone and in small groups.
Description:
The fruiting body is pear-shaped with a short stem.
The surface is covered with long (up to 5 mm) sharp, curved cream spikes, darkening to yellow-brown over time. With age, the fungus becomes naked, the pulp in young with a mesh pattern.
The flesh of young mushrooms is light, white, with a pleasant smell, later darkens to brown-violet.
The mushroom is edible at a young age.
Ecology and distribution:
It grows on soil and litter in deciduous and spruce forests, in shady places. Prefers calcareous soils. Occurs rarely.
Lycoperdon perlatum (Lycoperdon perlatum).
Family: Puffballs (Lycoperdaceae).
Season: mid-May – October.
Growth: singly and in groups.
Description:
The pulp is initially white, elastic, with a slight pleasant smell; as it matures, it turns yellow and becomes flabby.
The fruiting body is hemispherical, as a rule, with a noticeable “pseudopod”. The skin is white when young, darkens to grayish-brown with age, covered with easily separated spines of various sizes.
In the upper part, a characteristic tubercle often stands out.
Young mushrooms with white flesh are edible. Used fresh fried.
Ecology and distribution:
It grows in coniferous and mixed forests, on the edges, less often in meadows.
Pear-shaped puffball (Lycoperdon pyriforme).
Family: Puffballs (Lycoperdaceae).
Season: end of July – October.
Growth: large dense groups.
Description:
In adult mushrooms, the surface is smooth, often coarse-meshed, brownish. The skin is thick, in adult mushrooms it easily “flakes off”.
The pulp has a pleasant mushroom smell and a weak taste, white, wadded when young, gradually turns red. The fruit body is almost round in the upper part. The surface of young mushrooms is white, prickly.
The false stem is short, tapering downwards, with a root process.
Young mushrooms with white flesh are edible. Used boiled and fried.
Ecology and distribution:
It grows on rotten wood of deciduous, rarely coniferous species, on the basis of trees and mossy stumps.