I have loved mushrooms since childhood, and I have also been a programmer for a long time. Combining these two hobbies, I wrote this website. Previously, I had two other mushroom identification sites, which I sold. Only one of them remains accessible today. My goal with the current site is to create an easy-to-use search and identification platform that works great both in the field and at home. I hope it brings joy to others.
Bartha László
Species flashcards
Practice area: created for the 303-species Hungarian mushroom inspector requirement. It is not an official examination; requirements in other countries may differ.
Rooting Shank
Xerula radicata
edible
- Habitat: deciduous stump
- Fruiting season: June – October
- Cap: flat umbonate wrinkled smooth
- Stem: cylindrical rooting
- Fertile layer: adnate decurrent tooth sparse smooth
Description
Cap: Conically convex, flat spreading, but slightly pointed in the center, 4-15 cm wide. Grayish-yellow, grayish-brown, greenish-brown. Strikingly sticky in wet weather, shiny when dry. Its surface is mostly radially wrinkled.
Gills: Slightly sparsely standing, quite wide. Not decurrent, but sometimes adnate to the stem with a small tooth. Color white. Spore print white.
Stem: Long, slender, spindle-like thickened at the base, 8-25 cm long. Its root-like part in the soil gradually tapers and roots deeply (10-30 cm). Color grayish-, pale brownish, its surface longitudinally striated, fibrous.
Flesh: White, elastic, not brittle. Very tough, fibrous in the stem.
Spore: White; 12-16×10-12 µm; elliptical.
Occurrence: Emerging from the roots of forest trees, from the depths, on forest soil, growing singly. In summer and autumn, common in many places. In Central Europe, fairly evenly distributed from the plains to higher elevations.
Edibility: Mild mushroom smell. Its cap is edible, but the stem is tough, chewy. Can be used in soup or mixed with other mushrooms.
Confusion: Resembles several other mushrooms, including the dark-footed parasol group, but is recognizable by its sticky cap and deeply rooting stem. Among its relatives, the long-stemmed collybia also has a rooting stem, but its cap and stem are velvety. Anyway, these are not poisonous.
Note: radicata means rooting. Xerula is a very small genus of only four species, and among them Xerula radicata is by far the most common.
Species description: The British botanist/mycologist Richard Relhan (1754-1823) described this mushroom in 1785. He named it Agaricus radicatus. Because its appearance and growth are strange (peculiar), it is not surprising that there has been much debate about where this species belongs in the taxonomic classification. The rooting shank has therefore had many other names over the past 230 years. The current scientific name Xerula radicata was established in 1995, following a publication by the German Heinrich Dörfelt (born 1940).
Taxonomy
- PhylumBasidiomycota
- ClassAgaricomycetes
- OrderAgaricales
- FamilyPhysalacriaceae
- GenusXerula
- Species: radicata
- Described by: (Relhan: Fr.) Dörfelt
- Hungarian name: gyökeres fülőke
- Lifestyle: wood saprotroph, necrotrophic parasite
- Edibility: edible
