Fungi Friday - Dryad's Saddle

Here's a bit of dryad's saddle for this #fungifriday by @ewkaw

The latin name is polypore squamosis and this is edible if harvested around this size.

These get huge as they get older, but at this size it becomes as tough as a sponge and would be impossible to eat.

This is what dryad's saddle looks like when its just starting out.

I took the top one home because it was in perfect condition.

Here's what the pores look like underneath. I like to tempura batter these and dip them in sweet and sour sauce.

Here's the end result. They have a mild mushroom taste with an overlay of watermelon. Dipping in sweet and sour sauce helps enhance the watermelon flavor.

I also found a huge mushroom. This guy was about the size of a volleyball and bigger than a softball.

Here's a side view. This one is in the agaricus family and it could be either agaricus approximans or placomyces. They are basically the same kind of mushroom with subtle differences.

Here's the underside. So far I've read that some agaricus are edible but I couldn't confirm these one's edibility. Note the little mating flies under the right hand side of the stipe ring.

I also found some more chicken of the woods but this shows an older specimen that has become too tough to eat. They start turning white and lose their bright orange color.

I found some puffball mushrooms as well. These guys are called lycoperdon perlatum. One of the common names of this is gem studded puffball because of all the little nibs all over it. These are edible when it is solid white all the way through.

I found more edible goo as well, this one is called exidia glandulosa aka black jelly roll. I have used this in a soup before, this basically has no taste at all so you need to add alot of spices.

Finally I found a weird polypore growing out of the ground. It even began absorbing grass surrounding it. I believe this is Meripilus giganteus aka giant polypore. This one is most likely growing out of a root underground. Unfortunately these are tree killers, they eventually kill the root system. That's it for this #fungifriday

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