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"Cantharellus cibarius": The Chanterelle [ Basidiomycetes > Cantharellales > Cantharellus . . . ] by Michael Kuo "Cantharellus cibarius" (I'll explain the quote marks in a moment) is one of the world's best edible mushrooms. I think it is better than any other mushroom, when cooked fresh. Dried and reconstituted, however, it becomes leathery and tasteless--so I stick to dried boletes in the off-season, since they are better dried than fresh. Chanterelles grow on the ground under hardwoods or conifers, and are usually fairly easy to spot. They are medium-sized or large, yellow to orange-yellow mushrooms that feature a convex, flat, or shallowly depressed cap, a central and fleshy stem, and false gills on the under side of the cap. Chanterelles are well known for their fruity, apricot-like odor, best detected when you have several of them together in your bag or basket. The poisonous Jack O'Lantern Mushroom is often cited in field guides as a look-alike, but it grows in clusters on wood and features true, rather than false, gills. If you have found a nice, meaty chanterelle in North American woods, I not only encourage you to eat it, but also to call it "Cantharellus cibarius," as your field guide does. My key to Cantharellus and Craterellus will help you sort out some of the named, North American, cibarius-like species (they start at Couplet # 20), but to be honest there may not be such a thing as "Cantharellus cibarius" in North America--or anywhere else, for that matter. The problem is, the best description of Cantharellus cibarius we have from Quélet, the French mycologist who gave the species its current name in 1888, mentions yellow colors, an odor of apricots, and a peppery taste. He collected it in a bois near Paris, and he must have satisfied his French fungal fancy with his collection, because it is no longer available (dried, in a herbarium) for us to study. Chanterelle expert Ron Petersen has pointed out that even the "odor of apricots" Quélet described is suspect, since we have no clue what kind of "apricots" were being eaten in 19th-century Paris. Even if we were to return to the same Paris woods, collect chanterelles, and write a thorough, modern description, our DNA sequencers might easily tell us that we have two or three genetically different species of chanterelles--species we can't tell apart by observing their features--and we would have no way of knowing which one Quélet picked. Before you laugh too hard at my flight of fancy, I should let you know that this has already happened with "Morchella esculenta," another infamous species (substitute Fries for Quélet, and Uppsala, Sweden for Paris). In the case of Morchella esculenta, at least four genetically different but physically indistinguishable species have been collected in North America (by MushroomExpert.Com readers; see the Morel Data Collection Project), and it will never be known whether any of them matches Fries's Morchella esculenta. Recent studies have already split Cantharellus formosus and Cantharellus cascadensis (two species from the Pacific Northwest) away from Cantharellus cibarius, and more species will probably be named in the near future (the "Mud Puppy" perhaps among them). So you can see that "Cantharellus cibarius" deserves a healthy set of quote marks. If you are thinking that similar scenarios could unfold for just about any mushroom species named before the DNA revolution, well, welcome to 21st-century mycology! Description: Ecology: Mycorrhizal with hardwoods and conifers. The most prolific patches I have seen have been under maples in central Illinois, under Quaking Aspen and Big-Toothed Aspen in northern Michigan, and under birch in Finland. Mushrooms matching the description of Cantharellus cibarius can be found across North America, growing alone, scattered, or gregariously in summer and fall (or over winter in warmer climates). Cap: 1-20 cm across; more or less convex when young (often with a rolled-under margin); becoming flat or shallowly depressed, with a wavy and irregular margin; tacky when wet; smooth or with a few tiny appressed fibers; pale yellow to egg-yolk yellow to almost orange. Undersurface: With well developed false gills that frequently feature cross-veins; running deeply down the stem; colored like the cap or paler; sometimes staining brownish to orangish. Stem: 3-8 cm long; 1-3 cm thick; extremely variable in shape (from thin, more or less equal, and graceful to thick, stocky and nearly club-shaped); smooth below the false gills; colored like the cap or paler; sometimes bruising brownish to orangish. Flesh: White; solid; unchanging when sliced. Odor and Taste: Taste not distinctive or slightly peppery; odor fragrant and sweet, like apricots. Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap negative to reddish; ammonia on cap negative. Flesh pinkish gray to gray with iron salts; false gills dark gray with iron salts (see Reactions to Iron Salts among the Chanterelles). Spore Print: Pale yellow to creamy white.Microscopic Features: Spores 8-10 x 4.5-5.5 µ; smooth; elliptical. REFERENCES: (Fries, 1821) Quélet, 1888. (Corner, 1966; Smith, 1968; Bigelow, 1978; Smith, Smith & Weber, 1981; Thiers, 1985; Weber & Smith, 1985; Arora, 1986; States, 1990; Phillips, 1991/2005; Lincoff, 1992; Metzler & Metzler, 1992; Horn, Kay & Abel, 1993; Evenson, 1997; Persson, 1997; Barron, 1999; Roody, 2003; McNeil, 2006; Miller & Miller, 2006; Kuo, 2007.) Herb. Kuo 06249402, 07220303, 07180702. A miniature form of Cantharellus cibarius can be found in Illinois, and probably elsewhere, in moss, with caps to (unfortunately, for culinary purposes) 3 cm. It is identical to the normal form in all macrofeatures except size; see the bottom illustration. Further Online Information: Cantharellus cibarius at Tom Volk's Fungi |
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Cite this page as: Kuo, M. (2006, February). "Cantharellus cibarius": The chanterelle. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/cantharellus_cibarius.html |