Agaricus Reflections
When I was a boy, my father, sister and I would pick Agaricus cupreobrunneus, campestris, and sometimes bitorquis. We enjoyed them, by themselves, cooked in a little butter, or with other foods. They were a delicious part of early winter.
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Agaricus californicus. © Noah Siegel (from mushroomobserver.org)
I still pick them, but not with the enjoyment I had when little. I don’t know that xanthodermus and californicus weren’t then present, but we never agonized over our IDs. If it was growing in grasslands, had pink to brown gills, then it got collected and eaten. Now, every Fall and Winter, I use the below file, and eating them just isn’t the same. Cooking: my small pan likes 0.2 oz butter, mushroom pan should be covered, cooked on low heat until the juices turn blackish, serve lightly salted.
Unwelcome Agaricus
All of these have thick, pendant to skirt-like partial veils: californicus, praeclaresquamosus, hondensis, xanthodermus. The xanthodermus veil can be thin, and the ample and skirtlike veiled older caps don’t always yellow when margin is rubbed. If sliced in half lengthwise, the base of the stipe will yellow.
Welcome Agaricus
1. Thick, flaring veils: bitorquis, bernardii, lilaceps (sometimes flaring).
2. Growth in fields: campestris (veil thin, variable in appearance), bernardii (veil thick but sheathlike), bitorquis (veil thick and often flaring), cupreobrunneus (veil thin, sometimes flaring): almondy smelling types: arvensis (veil thin, skirt-like), osecanus (veil thin, skirt-like).
3. Growth in manured, or enriched soils: bisporus; subrufescens is almondy.
4. Growth in forests: brown cap breaking into brown scales is subrutilescens (but the more robust lilaceps is also brown and grows with trees and the collection in “recent experiences”, below, would fall here, too, though it had a pendant veil); augustus, perobscurus, silvicola, albolutescens are all almondy.
5. Almond or anise smelling: augustus, perobscurus, albolutescens, silvicola, arvensis, osecanus, subrufescens.
6. Red-stainers: fuscofibrillosus, arorae, lilaceps, bernardii.
7. Small, rarely in sufficient quantity to welcome collection: micromegathus and diminutivus groups.
8. Others fall under the above species.
Resource: Agaricus section of Mushrooms Demystified, p. 310
Recent Experiences
I spoke with Rick Kerrigan at the NAMA Santa Cruz conference, and later, at SOMA camp. He said that California has more species of Agaricus than have been described. My feeling: If you’re not comfortable with this, you shouldn’t eat Agaricus. A recent find cooked up with a slight taste of both phenol and iodine. I had a few bites of it, decided I didn’t really need to lose the contents of my stomach and tossed the rest out. But the tastes weren’t overpowering, the mushroom, whatever species it was, really wasn’t objectionable. The few mouthfuls I had produced no stomach distress. And when I later asked Rick Kerrigan, he re-affirmed my beliefs toward Agaricus toxicity: he knew of no one with gastric upset where symptoms lasted more than 24 hours.
Mushrooms covered:
See code