names; Calocybe gambosum, St George's Mushroom, [1]
IDENTIFICATION:
A distinctive spring species whose name comes from its appearance around St George's Day, 23rd April [1] Variable dingy-white mushroom [3]
SMELL: Flesh smells strongly of new meal [1] strong mealy smell [3]
TASTE: mild taste [2] strong mealy taste [3]
FLESH: White; very mealy smell [2]
CAP (pileus) colour: (not a good identification feature on it's own)
White with buffish tones [1], at first cream-white, can be ochreous when old; minutely 'pruinose' (Having a white, powdery covering or bloom, as a grapes skin does) [2] dingy white, discolouring brownish or yellow with age[3]
CAP form: (not a good identification feature on it's own)
Cap width averages 10cm in diameter [1] Upto 10cm in diameter [2] to 12cm across, rounded or convex, becoming flatter , irregular and undulating, surface finely suede-like at first but becoming smooth and sometimes cracking[3]
GILLS (lamellae): (not a good identification feature on it's own)
adnate and crowded white [1] white, crowded, sinuate [2] adnexed with decurrant tooth; narrow and very crowded; white or cream [3]
SPORES: (not a good identification feature on it's own?)
White [2]
STIPE: (not a good identification feature on it's own)
stout and white [1] Cream-white; evenly thick and with fibrous scales. [2]
SIMILAR SPECIES:
superficially similar to cultivated mushroom [1]
danger of confusing with inedible or weakly poisonous hebolomas and with very poisonous inocybe erubescens[2]
Inocybe erubescens has brown spore print (tobacco brown [2]) instead of white spore print. The smell is sweet instead of mealy, the taste is 'unpleasant' and like all other brown gilled fungi it shouldn't be eaten [2]. The gills start out white with a faint pink tinge which is probably the easiest point to misidentify them. Inocybe erubescens flesh is reddening [2]
Lepista nuda, lepista saeva,
HABITAT: (not a good identification feature on it's own)
grassy places such as meadows and downland. [1] on meadows, at forest fringes and in light, deciduous woods. [2]
'ARRANGEMENT': Mostly in fairy rings [2]
DISTRIBUTION: (not a good identification feature on its own)
widespread and sometimes locally common in Europe including Britain. [1] Not rare [1]
TIME OF YEAR: Around April to June [1] May to June [2] spring and early summer, reputed to start fruiting on St Georges day 23rd April [3]
EATING:
Edible and good [1]
not for drying [2]
RECIPES:
References
[1]Paul Sterry - A Photographic Guide to Mushrooms of Britain and Europe (Copyright 1995: New Holland (Publishers) Ltd
[2] Edmund Garnweidner - Mushrooms and toadstools of Britain and Europe
[3] Paul Sterry and Barry Hughes - Collins Complete Guide to Britains Mushrooms and Toadstools (Copyright 2009 Paul Sterry and Barry Hughes)
Edible and Poisonous Fungi - The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries
