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kotter


Registered: 01/15/11
Posts: 210
Last seen: 4 years, 8 months
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Hericium question
#19837991 - 04/13/14 01:41 PM (9 years, 10 months ago) |
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I made a poor ID request when I found this in early October of 2013. By poor I mean I could not come up with a spore print. This is unmistakeably a Hericium. I don't have any question on that. Maybe it even sounds dumb my asking for an ID of what looks pretty much like an erinaceus. I'd even be tempted to think that its just a variant of erinaceus but I am perplexed as everything I've read says erinaceus has an unbranched body with unbranched teeth except in high CO2 environments. This has some sort of an internal structure from the start and the wild fruiting body showed spikes towards the tips of some of the teeth. (Which is something I've seen happen on the americanum I have growing.) Is this just something erinaceus sometimes does? The other erinaceus I'm growing are all internally unbranched with a solid interior and have only simple teeth,
I'm going to try making a better job of the ID request:
Habitat:
On a tan-oak log (Lithocarpus) right at the transition between solid wood and rotted wood. Heavy shade with some dappled light, mixed regrowth redwood forest (with tan-oak, douglas-fir, madrone, huckleberries, Ceonothus incanus and California nutmeg). Downed log was formerly the top of a large tan-oak. When falling it hit downed trees and a fat redwood logging remnant that resulted in it being partly suspended in the air. The spot is in a semi-open swale on a wooded slope of tall but mostly skinny trees.

Gills:
Toothed. Ivory white to yellow to apricot. Sometimes some teeth have spiky tips. Most don't. See images below.
Stem:
None. The wild one was constricted at the base where it pushed out of the tree. See images below.
Mycelium:
Mycelium is white. Whispy at first but acts more like erinaceus than corolloides on rye. Smells *really* good in a Hericium mycelium way.
Cap:
Unmistakeably a Hericium. Largish (6x4"), firm but yielding, blobby, internally containing sinuslike voids and cavities and some sort of internal branching. White to offwhite internally, wild one was sort of light apricot on the outside of the fruiting body and white on the lower portions that were not exposed. In cultivation the fruit is white if allowed to fruit inside of a bag and ivory to yellow in a fruiting chamber. White inside in both cases. Cultivated fruiting body is similar to the wild one. This has been short toothed so far. I'm letting the oldest one on a bag in the photo go however long it goes to see if the teeth get longer. The wild one had some clustering spikes on the tips of some of its teeth similar to americanum. They can be seen in the second image below that is showing a close up of its teeth (under "After getting it home").
When I found it (3 October, 2013):
After getting it home (4 October, 2013):

After getting it into the kitchen (5 October, 2013):
This gets really spiky and wild looking when fruiting on agar inside of a jar (12 April, 2014).
Spore color:
Spore print is white. Spores are amyloid. Rounded but ranging from mostly rounded to irregular ovals to occasionally almost round. No distinctive surface features other than occasional depressions and pits. Largest one spotted was 7.5 x 4.7 microns. Most were close to 5 microns or larger in both directions. (Conversion factor for the scale in the spore images = 0.498256 microns per unit.)
Bruising:
None. Salmon to reddish surface discoloration if in dry air.
Other information:
Typical mild and nice Hericium smell. Taste was rather sweet for Hericium; a bit like an americanum. Its form and behavior also remind me more of americanum than erinaceus. As does that largest spore. I have been growing americanum in bags but it does not occur here.
This is the same clone fruiting on sawdust:
30 March 2014
1 April 2014
3 April 2014
6 April 2014
8 April 2014
13 April 2014
A couple view of the same thing on 14 April, 2014
Also 13 April 2014, same bag but younger fruiting body:
Same on 14 April 2014
Also 13 April 2014 but another fruiting body on a different bag:

14 April 2014 same as shown from 13 April with a view from two sides.

For sake of reference this is what I view as normal for erinaceus (both of these are cultivated and recent but I've also posted wild shots of the local lion's mane previously):

The coloration and shape of the body remind me a little bit of the really cool corolloides fruit shown at http://www.mushroomexpert.com/images/nadon/nadon_hericium_coralloides_03.jpg but obviously the teeth look different.
A comment on the log that this came from might be pertinent. Both a long toothed one I believed to be erinaceus and a loose and branching one that is clearly corolloides have been fruiting from this one log every year for the last four years. Corolloides has formed several really nice dense fruiting bodies and many more open branching ones. All of those were really normal looking for corolloides. In the habitat image in the first photo that fat log used to go all of the way to the logging remnant on the far right. That entire end was eaten by the corolloides in that much time.
Edited by kotter (04/15/14 09:59 PM)
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kotter


Registered: 01/15/11
Posts: 210
Last seen: 4 years, 8 months
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Re: Hericium question [Re: kotter]
#19851028 - 04/15/14 09:02 PM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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As I was watching that beautiful mushroom clearly passing its prime I decided to eat it rather than watch the softening yellow at the base spread. Like the wild one this came from the interior has voids and branching structure of some sort. Which would seem to suggest it is something other than an erinaceus. Or am I just not yet experienced at growing erinaceus to recognize this as a potential sort of growth that can happen?

I've read that it doesn't happen but is it even remotely possible for an erinaceus and a corolloides to hybridize? If it ever did how would it be possible to evaluate it?
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deadmandave
Slime


Registered: 02/16/10 
Posts: 3,367
Loc:
Last seen: 1 day, 2 hours
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Re: Hericium question [Re: kotter]
#19851593 - 04/15/14 11:34 PM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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awesome grow. Looks tasty
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maynardjameskeenan
The white stipes



Registered: 11/11/10
Posts: 16,391
Loc: 'Merica
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Incredible! Thanks for sharing. Those things taste delicious.
-------------------- May you be filled with loving kindness. May you be well. May you be peaceful and at ease. May you be happy. AMU Q&A
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Uhurungus
Avoiderer of Bullshit


Registered: 04/20/13
Posts: 838
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i have a small amount of experience growing herecium so take it with a grain of salt, but that looks just like all of my erenacius grows. i have no xp growing abeites (sp) or americanum but have found them in the wild, but have never found wild erenacius as far as i can tell.
if you get more conclusive evidence of anything, please post it. i'm curious now. i've had what i thought to be same genetics look totally different on consecutive grows when growing cubes. achieving mono culture, turns out, is harder than i thought.
-------------------- I'm never 100% on anything, just close enough to risk looking foolish.
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kotter


Registered: 01/15/11
Posts: 210
Last seen: 4 years, 8 months
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Re: Hericium question [Re: Uhurungus]
#19852996 - 04/16/14 09:19 AM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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Thanks, Uhurungus it looks most like an erinaceus to me also but the spores reaching a full 7 microns and the fruit having so much internal branching structure did not seem to fit the description or what I've seen so far on erinaceus whether in the wild or in cultivation. I'm still learning so not much will surprise me to discover. Hericiums certainly seem to show a lot of variability in their fruit within a species so it won't surprise me if I learn that erinaceus can sometimes share those two features with americanum and this is an erinaceus. Its different than the local erinaceus clones I've got growing but those two elements that were mentioned and its occasional spiky tooth tips seem to be the only differences. I guess one other difference is that all of the erinaceus I find here outside of this one single log are on live trees whereas this log has been on the ground for around five years now. My next question would be what descriptive features separate erinaceus and americanum? (other than the rockies of course). Erinaceus has not grown as long of teeth americanum can sometimes do but most of the time the americanum I grow has not produced long teeth for me. The image and comments at the lower right in the page http://www.mushroomexpert.com/hericium_erinaceus.html seems to share my confusion. My world here sounds rather complementary to yours, I only know americanum from what I've grown starting from a culture syringe but find erinaceous locally in Spring and Fall. If the weather and temperatures cooperate of course. (Corolloides is incredibly abundant here for a much longer season. I've collected those here in every month from September through May depending on weather that year.)
The taste is awesome, rather sweet.
Edited by kotter (04/16/14 02:10 PM)
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kotter


Registered: 01/15/11
Posts: 210
Last seen: 4 years, 8 months
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Re: Hericium question [Re: kotter]
#19854193 - 04/16/14 01:54 PM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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I have one other question if I operate on the assumption that this is just an erinaceus.
Is the interior lack of solidity something that is strain related or is there a nutritional solution for the media mixture that could correct it?
There are a total of 117 bags of this one, three local erinaceus clones (which so far have all produced fruit that had unbranched interiors) and a couple of corolloides clones that just went into a fruiting chamber a few days ago. Hopefully as their mushrooms develop it can help shed some more light for me in coming days.
Edited by kotter (04/16/14 02:18 PM)
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kotter


Registered: 01/15/11
Posts: 210
Last seen: 4 years, 8 months
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Re: Hericium question [Re: kotter]
#19865785 - 04/18/14 02:07 PM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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I've been watchings these growing on bags in a large fruiting chamber along with clones of three other local erinaceus. There is so little difference between them I have to assume this too is an erinaceus. I'll keep watching them grow but its hard to come to any other point of view right now. That conclusion is something that is acceptable enough to me but it does leave me seriously confused about the value of descriptions in making identification in general. If a species is consistently defined in the descriptions in the literature and in taxonomic keys as lacking internal branching and to have spores only up to 6.5 microns yet a specimen violating both points can still be the same species, what actual good are spore sizes and discriminant bifurcation questions like "branched or unbranched" appearing in a taxonomic key? Both of those would say this is not an erinaceus whereas observation of it growing along with erinaceus suggests it IS erinaceus. The other erinaceus fit the description perfectly in terms of spore size and their lack of internal branching. This is troubling to me for several reasons. The biggest one being an undermining of my ability to have trust in the published descriptions to aid in identifications. I mean I can use a key to determine the ID is correct on some but to determine the ID on another I have to ignore the published description and use gross morphology to compare my question subject to "knowns". Since those knowns are identifiable as they align with a description that does not align with the question subject this seems like a strange combination of circular logic and cherry picking. It sort of reminds me of the high court years ago saying pornography was hard for them to define but that they knew it when they saw it. I would hugely appreciate any advice in understanding this.
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