PNW mushroom foraging: bear's head fungus, hericium americanum:
Bear's head fungus, hericium americanum:
An awesome find anytime, this mushroom is most often found growing on a stump or a log, but can be found growing out of woody debris in soil. A potent and valuable medicinal mushroom which is also delicious with a slightly seafood taste.
Closely related to the lion's mane mushroom, these 'pom-pom' mushrooms are among the easiest to identify, having no poisonous lookalikes beyond some corals which are reported to produce some gastrointestinal distress in some people.
Easy to tell the difference though, corals grow upwards out of the ground, hericium such as bear's head or lion's mane grow downwards generally from the side of a stump or log.
Like this picture of a coral:
Thanks for checking it out, more to come! :)
Kinda reminds me of sparassis mushroom, has that cream cauliflower color to them.
Heres one I found awhile back, unfortunately it has stopped fruiting in the last few years.
https://steemit.com/nature/@freedomcoin/title-cauliflower-mushroom-sparassis-looks-like-coral-can-make-soup-with-it
We just found one of those cauliflower mushrooms too, looks like the one pictured on the first video under the recipes section! I was going to do a post on that one next. It's been a great year :)