Oyster Mushrooms found in later summer/early fall in NJ

Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus)

For years I’ve stumpled upon prolific patches of wild oyster mushrooms growing in the woods while hiking, but every time I did they were usually pretty water logged and teaming with little black beetles,  never in a state where collecting them ended up with something I felt any interest in eating once I got it back to the house…I’ve seen them in the middle of the summer all the way until early December this year, and it’s usually available year round these days in stores like Whole Foods.

Possible Angel Wing Mushroom Poisonings

I’d also read about some possible oyster mushroom related poisonings in Japan a few years back, which led  me to be a bit less interested in trying to collect anything oyster mushroom related for awhile…

Oyster Mushrooms — Angels Wings

Apparently those poisonings were thought to be a specific type of oyster mushrooms known  as Angels Wings. On the other hand, I’ve also read accounts of people having eaten Angel  Wing mushrooms their whole lives without incident, and indeed the people poisoned in the Japan incident seemed to have been quite accustomed to gathering and eating them…my guess is that there was some unknown factor involved that we don’t yet know about, but that’s just a guess.

Everywhere I look I see Oyster Mushrooms!

Oyster Mushrooms growing behind a woody vine.

Recently though, while hiking with my dogs around the lake behind where I’m staying, I noticed this patch of mushrooms growing in a tree where I had seen similar flushes of mushrooms grow over the past 2 years of hiking this location.

I always thought when I passed them, maybe those are a type of oyster mushroom,  but I was never interested enough to actually confirm that. This year, I took a sample home and took spore prints, and also got a little help from the fine folks over at wildmushroomhunting.org to help confirm my find.

Oyster mushrooms are considered by many to be a choice edible, and are easily purchased online or at grocery stores with decent produce sections these days. You can also buy some pretty decent Oyster Mushroom Grow Kit
that I’ve seen online that seem pretty foolproof and like they’re a great way to become familiar with what the mushroom looks like up close without having any fear that you might be mis-identifying your oyster mushrooms

How to Identify Oyster Mushrooms

Oyster Mushrooms Growing Up a Tree

At first, trying to identify oyster mushrooms can seem a bit confusing as there are several variations of oyster mushrooms that you are likely to encounter depending on your location and the time of year. One characteristic to look for in an oyster mushrooms is that the gills run down the stem.

Oyster Mushrooms Have Decurrent Gills that Run Down the Stem

Oyster mushrooms have very basic, stubby stems which are sometimes hard to even notice. If you look closely at this area, and you are indeed looking at an Oyster mushroom, you should notice that the gills actually run down the stem. Here the gills would be described as being “decurrent.” The gills should be a bit close together, and broad in shape  running all the way down the mushroom to and along the stubby stem if present, or else up to the edge of the tree almost. The color of the gills can be grey to yellowish from what I have collected.

The cap size and color can  vary a bit, and that’s one of the reasons I shied away from trying to identifying and enjoy these popular wild edible mushrooms initially, but they’re actually pretty easy to identify really.  Oyster mushrooms can be white, grey,tan, dark brown even…they can also appear in a variety of sizes as you can see on the pictures I’ve posted along with this article. Notice the range of cap size in the picture to the right even, everything from a few inches up to 4-5 inches there, and can fan out to about 8 inches at times.

Take Spore Prints When

Identifying Wild Mushrooms

Oyster Mushroom Spore Print

It might make the casual mushroom hunter feel a bit geeked out to take a spore print from a wild mushroom. Just the act of stooping down and picking a mushroom up is odd for some people to let themselves do, not to mention carrying it all the way back to your car, and driving home with it in the passenger seat!

But if you’ve already gotten over the social stigmas surrounding the idea of wild mushroom hunting, and have a bunch on your kitchen table for identifying and possible consumption, then it’s a good idea to start learning to take spore prints of the mushrooms you gather. Spore prints will give you additional identifying data which can help distinguish from a edible mushrooms sometimes poisonous look-a-likes.

I like to take spore prints on both black and white paper usually. That way whether the spores are light or dark, at least on side of the paper will take a nice print that you can use to help identify what you gathered. Sometimes you’ll see something in the black paper

Oyster Mushroom Spore Print Looks Like Santa's Nose, Mouth and Beard?

print, and then something else in the white paper print that you didn’t notice in the black print. Take a good look at both sides. Spore prints can sometimes come out quite striking in appearance. The one I took for these Oyster mushrooms actually ended up reminding me of the nose, mouth and beard of Santa Claus!

Santa’s Beard in the Spore Print?! LOL

Besides it’s resemblance to Santa, what we’re really noticing here is the color of the spore print. It’s a bit difficult to tell via the picture I took, but the color of the spore print when I first observed it by eye was a light purple tinted grey…when I looked up what color Oyster mushrooms spores should be, bingo…lilac to light grey. That alone made me pretty sure that what my eyes where telling me where oyster mushrooms, were indeed oyster mushrooms.

Oyster Mushrooms Are A Choice Edible!

Oyster Mushroom Gills

Congratulations, if you’ve found oyster mushrooms then you’ve got yourself a choice edible on your hands. I find them to have a pleasant, light woodsy odor. There are a number of ways to cook oyster  mushrooms, but as with any wild edible mushroom I gather, I first like to  cook it with just a little butter, a little olive oil, and then just a pinch of salt. These basic ingredients usually help bring out the natural taste of the wild edible mushroom you’ve gathered and identified.

Oyster Mushroom Cluster

It bears repeating though, please never consume any wild mushroom without being beyond certain you have identified 100% correctly. I find having someone with experience confirm  what I’ve gone through the process of identifying lends me the extra confidence I need before I’m willing to put a wild mushroom in my stomach. If in doubt throw it out!