Olive Oysterling

I popped over to Croome this morning "for an hour", arriving in nice light just after the doors were opened at 10am, and leaving, toadally zorsted, four hours later. During that time I found a lot of fungi, did what for me is an exceptional amount of socialising, and spent a while restoring myself with good cake and decent coffee. My best specimens of the day, as anyone who knows him would expect, were shown to me by my mate RC, who's definitely the man to know because he keeps an eagle eye out for interesting fungi while working around the estate.

My favourite 'shroom of the day has to be the Wrinkled Peach, simply because it's so luscious, but as I blogged that one on Tuesday I've decided to relegate it to my Facebook page today, and write about a different species. The Wrinkled Peach is definitely worth a look though, if you have the time.

This rather sulphorous fungus looks, at least superficially, like an oyster mushroom, and its identity has been the subject of some debate since RC first posted it to Twitter a few days ago. Today three of us gathered around this felled branch to peer at the specimens sprouting from it, and found a couple on another section of the bark whose caps were olive green. This apparently rules out the oysters because they're never green, and makes the likeliest identification the Olive Oysterling, a fungus which has been reclassified several times already and still doesn't seem to have found a permanent home: many American sources refer to it as Panellus serotinus, but in the UK it's more likely to be called Sarcomyxa serotina.

In contrast to the Candlesnuff I posted yesterday, the Olive Oysterling colonises recently felled hardwood, breaking down the tougher cellular components such as cellulose and lignin. Looking at its entry in the NBN Atlas it appears to be relatively rare, but it may simply be that it's under-reported: these vivid fruiting bodies are very obvious, but the dark olive caps were quite cryptic and would be easy to overlook.

Almost predictably, given the other uncertainties that surround it, there's a lot of debate about whether or not this mushroom is edible. In Japan, where it's called muritake, it seems to be popular, and it's also recommended by the American channel Learn Your Land. But other sources say that it should be approached with caution, because the flesh is tough and rubbery, and when fresh the cap tends to have an unappealing, viscid coating. A sticky, glutinous and chewy mushroom doesn't immediately appeal to me, I have to say, and given that even its enthusiasts say that it can be bitter too, I think on balance I'd probably rather give it a miss.