Identifying Suillus weaverae / Suillus lactifluus / Suillus granulatus

i've passed by huge flushes of mushrooms that turned out to be edible when i looked them up later especially mushrooms in the bolite family every time that happens i kick myself and say that i'll be ready next time and so as fate would have it here we are in front of a spongy tubed slimy capped ectomycorrhizal being that is in need of identification if you've read the title then you already know what these are but let's run through like we have no idea what's going on which to be honest i rarely do so this will show my thought process of looking at a new mushroom anyways let's get into it with suelis mushrooms boletes or really any mushroom you don't know it's always a good idea to pay attention to where the mushrooms are growing these ones are nestled right into a small planting of eastern white pines and there are some more alongside a few hybrid pines that's important since these mushrooms are mycorrhizal growing in association with the pine tree's roots so you're almost certainly not going to find them sprouting out of logs or branches up in the canopy that information will help you exclude a bunch of mushrooms from the possible list the first thing that i noticed is the sticky slimy cap these mushrooms are pretty slick and you can see them glistening from a distance so to me that just shouts to willis slimy mushrooms aren't always going to be a sueliss but in combination with the spongy pores in association with pines it's a good starting point this stuff is pretty slick and just as a warning it's a little annoying to get off your fingers the caps on these are in general a light brownish color although there are a handful in this patch that have slightly darker caps there's a mix of older and younger mushrooms in this patch and it seems like the tight young ones have the most slime and that was kind of a weird sentence but underneath the cap these mushrooms have yellow colored pores they're pretty cool to look at up close it sort of looks like the surface is a little uneven and jagged with nice round holes if you find some really young ones the pores won't be as obvious and big but rather tight and small you might also be able to see some liquid droplets underneath as well at first you might think it's dew but if you look closely these droplets are opaque like milk this will be an important identifying characteristic and it's pretty neat to look at continuing to move down the stem on this mushroom is a bit yellow in some individuals it'll be paler but all that i've seen in this population have been a pretty consistent light yellow color you should also take note of the fact that there's no veil or remnants or fragments of it anywhere on the stem or cap when keying out soulless mushrooms looking for glandular dots can help narrow things down on some mushrooms the glandular dots will be very obvious like on this soulless americanus in case you didn't know glandular dots are going to be those little dark spots along the stem while they're really obvious in suitless americanus or some other species these mushrooms have basically imperceptible dots to the point that i question if they're even there at all a couple of the older mushrooms have dusty dark spots right beneath the cap but i think this might be from spore deposition since the spore prints on these mushrooms are a light brown color i noticed that from this angle you can sort of see the sporulation it's a little bit hard to see though another thing we can do is cut the mushroom in half this accomplishes a couple of things first you can see the color of the flesh inside which is a pale yellow color then you can wait and see if there's any bruising reaction i'll spare you some time and say that this mushroom doesn't bruise even mashing on the pores of the finger doesn't seem to result in much more than a slightly duller yellow color so with all of those traits where do we end up let's first say that you might end up a bit lost depending on what source you look at so this is a swillis mushroom which depending on what time and place you're from might be called one of three things some sources and keys like the mushrooms of northeastern north america would point you towards suwilus lactiflus this species is noted for being a bit yellower with less visible glandular dots than the typical suwilus granulatus it's also known for having milky droplets on the pore surface so that fits pretty well but others would say that that's an outdated term or a synonym for an existing species and that the species lactifulis is only a slightly yellower lighter glandular dotted form of the species suwillis granulatus but it doesn't end there because in north america that species might not even exist here mushrooms that fit that description are classified as suelus weveray a north american species that resembles the old world species soulless granulatus so here we are with willis weaver a but a form with a bit more yellow and a little less obvious coloring on the glandular dots i'm not really sure where that leaves us so if there are any seasoned mushroom taxonomists feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments so after all that you're probably wondering if it's edible or not and yes you can eat it no matter what way the taxonomy twists this mushroom is edible many of the soulless mushrooms aren't considered choice edibles but they're pretty good if you catch them early enough the typical sewillus slimy pelican on the cap can cause some issues with some people and by issues i mean anything ranging from mild stomach upset to severe gastrointestinal distress so i would strongly advise to anyone wanting to eat this mushroom that you should peel off the pellicle and get rid of all the slime it comes off pretty easily with the help of a knife or your fingernails and leaves behind a nice clean spongy mushroom if you try to get them off while they're really slick and wet you might have an awful time and just end up destroying the mushroom i had better luck leaving some on the counter to de-slime for a bit before peeling after that i would suggest dehydrating them and keeping them for some good mushroom soups or risotto they will dry down to just about nothing though so that's it i hope you enjoyed this little dive into sue willis identification i think this will be a good mushroom year and i'll probably be able to share some more interesting finds with you later if you liked this video and made it all the way through consider subscribing to my channel it really helps me out and it'll let you know when i post again anyways thanks so much for watching stay safe out there and take care bye you

Channel: Jabberwalks

Views: 1,910

Keywords: Jabberwalks, foraging, bushcraft, edible, plants, mushroom

Id: moyxDVhWe3c

Length: 7min 31sec (451 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 02 2021