How to ID Caesar mushrooms, Amanita section Caesareae stirps Hemibapha

hey it's anna i am looking down at a collection of get ready for it amanita section cesare stirps hemi buffa in most uh identification field guides for um north carolina and the vicinity you're going to see this mushroom described as amanita jacksonii and we do have a mushroom species called amanita jacksonii it is typically further north uh so we're in the process and when i say we i mean real mycologists not just people like me who try to follow all the greatest hits of taxonomy changes to pretty much no avail at this point there is a sort of a section of mushrooms that are called uh commonly the slender uh caesar's amanita so you know these are mushrooms that are very similar in appearance and flavor to amanita caesarea which is a european species the romans love them they're one of those sort of iconic amanita mushrooms that has been favored from a culinary perspective for a long time so in north america we have amanita jacksonii it is a bright red species and it also has a very very yellow stem and yellow gills and amanita section caesarea stirp's hemi buffer is a collection of species that share similar characteristics but they are genetically distinct that's about as far as i'm going to go into that if you want to go crazy on taxonomy ammon ammonytasier.org has descriptions and sort of the um you know backstory of all of these changes as they're transpiring this is a pretty darn common mushroom it is edible amanita mushrooms are not a beginner genus you know our death cat mushrooms are destroying angel mushrooms are also amanitas that said these are really easy to distinguish from other amanita species and so i'd call this a like intermediate mushroom kind of depending on how comfortable you are and how interested you are in collecting wild food uh so you know it is a sort of um personal choice thing but they are really easy to id if you're familiar with some of the basic steps of mushroom identification all right all caveats and taxonomy notes aside let's get down to how to identify these mushrooms so first of all uh as i mentioned they're an amanita mushroom this is a a large genus that consists of many many hundreds of species cap and stem they also under most circumstances have a ring on the stem so basically uh the mushroom comes up in a little baby protective sack we're gonna look at that in a second but uh there's also a what's called a partial veil so it's just a a bunch of tissue that covers the mushroom's gills when it's maturing and then when the mushroom opens up and it starts to drop spores this partial veil breaks and it leaves a ring on the stem now in the case of these uh you know i'm gonna call them jacksoni i like mushrooms uh you know they have a pretty prominent ring on the stem this one is a little bit stuck to it but it kind of looks like a flamenco skirt it's very very pretty and elaborate some rings on the stem are just you know like a little remnant so this is a you know pretty uh large and noticeable ring additionally you have a hollow stem so that's a distinguishing characteristic a lot of amanitas are either solid or they have sort of a fluffy stuffing in the middle and you'll sometimes see a little bit of fluff in here but for the most part they're um just as as hollow as can be uh you also have a cap that has prominent striations on it and so striations here let's see if i can get a slightly better perspective on it um there we go okay so striations are basically stripey grooves that are along the margin of the cap and uh in the case of amanita jack sony i like mushrooms these striations are pretty noticeable as the mushroom matures but even when they're babies you can see the beginnings of that you also have sort of a color gradient in the caps anywhere from this sort of orangey red vermillion color to uh sort of a flaming yellow you can you know see there these are actually from two different collections i've just grabbed all of them that i can find so we've got multiple species being represented here so you know you have this sort of more fiesta color and more of a lemony color on the other end of the spectrum as far as edibility is concerned this is quite a pleasant mushroom it has a sort of mild flavor but it is meaty it is one of the mushrooms also you can eat raw most uh wild mushrooms you should uh cook uh well and and culinary mushrooms for that matter that you buy at the store you should always cook your mushrooms with the uh a few exceptions and uh jacksoni i like mushrooms fall into that category so when they are at their best uh edibility wise is when they're in their sort of egg form this is also the most distinguishing characteristic of these mushrooms beyond the striations and the color and all that fun stuff there are lookalikes that share a lot of those traits but amanita jacksonii like mushrooms have a really large universal veil at the base so this is the protective layer of tissue that you know covers and protects the baby mushroom and it is huge and it also has a very um you know consistent split pattern it's sort of this like uh off-center chevron shape and that's very consistent um across collections that i found over the years so you know you have this big uh cup sometimes you will you know for instance in in this case i popped the mushroom and the cup was left behind but nonetheless you will almost always see a large amount of it and i uh note that because there are some lookalikes that don't have the cup at the base but in pretty much every other respect look like this mushroom so um you know you have the cup at the base in the interest of taking it home i'm going to dispose of that it's just sort of um you know fluffy it dirt dirt sticks to it anyway i'm going to discard it and i just take the mushroom itself home sans slug looks like i have a couple of slugs all right well we'll deal with that later so this is um it in its sort of ideal uh state they're really uh tasty especially before the you know mushroom opens and the gills are all tightly packed together so you have a consistent sort of munch as opposed to you know it crumbling up into a bunch of different gills in your mouth um so that's uh that distinguishing characteristic and recommendation on edibility i think the other thing that is probably to me the most beautiful thing about this species and i wish i had a more fresh and larger specimen but they have this sort of like nice pale yellow stem but you have these orangey streaks and stretch marks that uh that form on the stem this one is a little bit more distinct you can see uh some streaking here so you know it and it tends to be sort of in this um upward shape sort of um lambda thing it's really really uh you know a plus uh you can see a little bit of of it here emerging on this mushroom as well so this is typically um you know a mushroom you find in the summer i'm actually kind of surprised this is early october and they're usually done by now but they are very very numerous they are mycorrhizal meaning that they will come back in the same spot year after year and they make really nice big patches so yeah i recommend that you learn them they're beautiful they're unique and at some point we'll also have names for all the different ones that exist in our area

Channel: Anna McHugh

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Id: SOtBuC__Nhg

Length: 7min 51sec (471 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 04 2020