Hated by horticulturalists, Honey Fungus (Armillaria) is one of our most common fungi. For a while this Autumn, it seemed like it was trying to take over the whole country. The largest single organism on Earth is an Armillaria mycelium which covers nine square kilometres. This is a species which should be treated with a healthy degree of caution by novice foragers. It should not be eaten until you are confident that you know everything else you might confuse it with and how to safely cook it and even then you should only try a little at first, because many people are allergic or find it indigestible. However, once you know it, it’s reasonably easy to identify. Usually, that is.
Back in October, I was en-route to a foraging trip and spotted what looked like Honey Fungus sprawled out along a hundred-metre section of the central reservation of the A23 in Crawley. Maybe not the ideal location for foraging, but I was with a novice and it was a good opportunity to take a look at what just what Honey Fungus is capable of when it decides to go on the rampage. Honey Fungus spreads itself via bootlace-like rhizomorphs which travel underground searching for new hosts (which can be dead or alive - it's not that choosy.)
I parked the car and made my way to the first area of fruiting bodies and sure enough, this was Honey Fungus (Armillaria mellea in this case).
As we continued down the reservation, I spotted something than I initially believed was definitely not Honey Fungus. I didn't have a clue what it actually was.
I've seen a lot of Honey Fungus over the years, but never anything that looked remotely like this. On the contrary, the only thing this bears any resemblance to are the morels and helvellas. I then noticed some other patches, this time in the process of growing their "brains."
There were two possible alternatives. Either this was a new parasitic fungus or it was some sort of mutation. At this point I required assistance, since I have neither the equipment nor the knowledge to be able to tell whether this was of any interest to the professional mycologists. It turned out that the microscopy posed more questions than it answered. It's not a parasite. You can tell this partly by examining a cross-section…
…but there is more conclusive evidence than that. The true gills of these mushrooms have no spore-producing basidia at all; they are completely sterile. If that wasn't strange enough in itself, the brain-like growths on the top did have basidia and were producing spores fit for A. mellea. Perhaps these oddities can shed some light on the evolutionary history of the morels. It may have been a mutation just like this one which led to their own brain-like structures. The technical term for this is a "morel-like teratological form", and is reasonably well-known in certain species, although not, to my knowledge, this one ("teratological" just means "visibly or grossly malformed.")
It even occurred to me that maybe there could be a business opportunity here. People pay lots of money for morels, honey fungus is edible, maybe I should deliberately try to grow these mushrooms and sell them as an unusual delicacy! In the end I didn't even have the courage to sample them myself. They almost certainly are edible, but there just seemed to be something a little too weird about these mushrooms.
Foraging Notes
Identification: Can be tricky. Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall managed to get it wrong, mistaking the poisonous Sulphur Tuft (Hypholoma fasciculare) for Honey Fungus There are numerous other species that an unwary forager could confuse them with, including some which are considerably more dangerous than Sulphur Tuft (Galerina species, for example.) The easiest way to check you've got Honey Fungus is to go searching for the rhizomorphs and the white mycelial sheets which can be found beneath the bark of infected trees.
Consumption: Honey Fungus is a complex of species which were all until recently lumped together as A. mellea. There are now at least four subspecies known in the UK, some of which are considered more likely to be slightly poisonous or trigger allergies. Up to 10% of people are effected, so do your homework and take care. Before eating they must be boiled and the water thrown away before frying or including in a stew or casserole. Some people rate them quite highly, personally I only eat them if I fail to find anything better. They're food, at least.
I like them very much,they taste fantastic,one of my fav mushroom,very popular in poland.
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Invasion of the Monster Honey Fungus
