Happy mushroom

Description: This mushroom really does look something like a large, ruffled chicken. It grows as a bouquet of grayish-brown, fan-shaped, overlapping caps, with off-center white talks branching from a single thick base. On the underside, the pore surface is white.

A single clump of hen-of-the-woods can grow to enormous size and weigh up to 100 pounds. It often grows in the same spot year after year.

When and Where: Summer and fall; on the ground at the base of trees, or on stumps.

Cautions: Many gilled mushrooms grow in large clumps-remember that hen-of-the-woods is a pore fungus.

This mushroom has no poisonous look-alikes, but there are some similar species of pore fungi that are tough and inedible. If what you have tastes leathery or otherwise unpleasant, you probably didn't pick a hen-of-the-woods.

Cooking Hints: Use only fresh, tender portions. Simmer in salted water until tender (requires long, slow cooking), and serve as a vegetable with cream sauce; or chill after cooking and use on salads.

There are many other good edible wild mushrooms available to Missouri mushroom hunters, including the popular meadow mushrooms. If you'd like to try collecting some of these, the references listed at the end of this article will help you do so safely.

Copyright 1983 by the Conservation Commission of the State of Missouri reprinted from the Missouri Conservationist

Description: These mushrooms light up the forest with their brilliant orange-red caps and pale sulfur-yellow pore surfaces. Some specimens fade to a peach or salmon color.

The sulfur shelf always grows on wood, usually in large masses of overlapping caps. It has no stem; the cap is attached directly to the wood. The pores are tiny.

Other names include chicken mushroom and chicken of the woods. Size: 2 to 12 inches wide.

When and Where: Summer and fall; in clusters on living trees or dead wood.

Cautions: This is a distinctive mushroom with no poisonous look-alikes. It does cause a mild allergic reaction (swollen lips) in some people.

Cooking Hints: Cook only the tender outer edges of the caps; the rest is tough and woody. Slice and simmer in stock for 45 minutes, then serve creamed on toast.

When cooked, this mushroom has the texture and often the taste of chicken.

Description: If you can picture a hamburger bun on a thick stalk, you will have a good idea of what most boletes look like. These sturdy, fleshy mushrooms can be mistaken at first glance for gilled mushrooms, but if you turn over a cap you will find a spongy layer of pores on the underside rather than bladelikegills. The pore layer can easily be pulled away from the cap.

Bolete caps are usually brownish or reddish-brown, while the pores may be whitish, yellow, orange, red, olive or brownish. Size: up to 10 inches tall; caps 1 to 10 inches wide.

There are more than 200 species of boletes in North America. The King Bolete (Boletus edulis) is probably the best edible.

When and Where: Summer and fall; on the ground near or under trees. Frequently found under pines.

Cautions: Boletes are considered a good, safe edible group for beginning mushroom collectors. However, you should observe these cautions:

1. A few boletes are poisonous. To avoid these, don't eat any boletes that have orange or red pores.

2. Some boletes, while not poisonous, are very distasteful. Check this by tasting a pinch of the raw mushroom cap. If it is bitter or otherwise unpleasant, throw it out.

3. To make them more digestible, boletes should be cooked before eating. If the cap is slimy, peel off the slime layer; it sometimes causes diarrhea.

4. Bugs seem to like boletes as much as people do, so check your specimens carefully. Boletes also tend to decay quickly. Be sure to collect and eat only fresh specimens.

Cooking Hints: Remove tough stems, and peel off the pore layer in all but the youngest specimens.

Saute in butter and add to any cheese dish. Dried boletes also are good in soups.