Food, food culture, food as culture and the cultures that grow our food

The Spore Report

November 7, 2011

Spore print of a not yet defined edible agaricus variety. Debra Solomon, culilblog.org
A spore print, probably of an agaricus arvensis.

What an exuberant spore print, probably of an agaricus arvensis, or maybe an agaricus campestris, possibly an agaricus bitorquis, or if I’m lucky, an agaricus silvicola. They’re all edible. Still, most likely it’s a horse mushroom, agaricus arvensis. I found it along the bike path, cutting through the woods, near the border of some grassland.

Ruling out the poisonous possible doppelgängers, it’s unlikely to be an agaricus xanthodermus. Why? Because it’s flesh is not turning yellow when bruised or cut, and because it doesn’t smell of creosote. It smells of anise, and of sweet leaf mould, like the woody path it came from. It smells like it’s going to be delicious fried in butter and served on toast at lunch.

And there’s at least one more…

debra at 10:16 | | post to del.icio.us

2 Comments »

  1. Then later that day I bumped into this… and this whole post seemed hilarious…

    http://www.regretsy.com/2011/10/29/weekend-flashback-ebay-hole-nsfw/

    Comment by Debra — November 7, 2011 @ 20:55

  2. beautiful. I used to try and collect spore prints by spraying them with a sealing spray. They’re so unique always!

    Comment by Joanna Swan — November 8, 2011 @ 20:21


culiblog is a registered trademark of Debra Solomon since 1995. Bla bla bla, sue yer ass. The content in this weblog is the intellectual property of the author and is licensed under a Creative Commons Deed (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5).