Wood Blewits

The Grisette is a relatively slender, tall, very fragile mushroom with striated, thinly fleshed cap. Its gills are very dense and the basal volva is large and has lobed margins. It grows in clamp places in coniferous forests.

The stipe always lacks a ring and it was therefove formerly classified as a member of the independent Amanitopsis genus. The colour of its cap is changeable, but a typical Grisette has a grey cap on a whitish stipe and volva. The fruit- bodies with an orange or orange-brown or sometimes a slightly olive tinged cap are classified as Amanita crocea. Their stipes are similarly coloured and are characterized by transverse broken lines.

Like Blewits, fresh fruit-bodies of Wood Blewits contain a substance which damages red blood- cells. However, it is neutralized by boiling and so thoroughly cooked mushrooms are not dangerous. Wood Blewits can be confused with some purple species of the Cortiwarivs genus. However, all of these are distinguished by their rust-brown spore powder, by the presence of the cobweb-like veil (cortina) and by their unpleasant smell.

Edible mushrooms can be found not only in forests, but also in meadows, pastures and on grassy slopes. Blewits are among the most substantial and tasty. They even attract the inexperienced eye because they often grow in circles in patches of dark green grass, which ate a strikingly deeper green than the rest of the sward. A similar phenomenon may be observed in the Fairy-ring champignon (Marasmius oreades) and is due to the production of nitrogen, which enriches the soil and provides additional nourishment for green plants. This is one example of the symbiosis of certain fungus mycelia and adjacent green plants.

The flesh of the Sulphur tuft is a bright yellow and has a repulsive bitter taste, whilst that of Hy sublateritium is a dirty white with a rust-coloured tinge at the base of the stipe and it has only a slight bitter taste. The former species has sulphur-yellow, later greenish gills, while in the latter species the gills are pale yellow, later turning to an olive- brown. When the mushrooms mature the gills of both species turn purple-black or chocolate-brown as a result of the colour of the ripe spores.

In calm weather conditions it is possible to smell the scent of Clitocybe adorn at a distance of several metres away, especially when several specimens arc growing together in one spot. This species is edible and best utilized when added to mixtures of other, less aromatic mushrooms. It grows predominantly in spruce forests amongst rotting needles. It loses its typical scent when it is dried out.