In these notes, I would like to talk about my findings and discoveries. The scene is Kharkov, deciduous forest. If suddenly I am carried into a pine tree, I will definitely indicate this separately. Our forest is small, pretty trampled by all categories of vacationers, from mothers with children and dog lovers to cyclists. And then there are those who like to drive quadcopters and ride horses. Yet this forest never ceases to amaze and delight. Last year, there were especially many quiet discoveries: my husband and I, for the first time in our life, found a yellow barnacle and our first umbrella griffin. This year has also started very promising – But – first things first.
March this year was strange: warm and sunny at the beginning of the month, everything promised a swift spring, then it got cold and chilly, the temperature dropped below zero at night. Only by the end of the month it began to seem that spring would still come.
April 2. The first sunny day after a gray and gloomy March, and we went for a walk, admire the exuberant flowering of snowdrops (which are not snowdrops, but blue forests). There are several places where there are so many streaks that they form a solid blue carpet. You look and remember 'I look into the blue lakes—' I, of course, had a secret idea to find some early spring mushrooms. Not for gastronomic purposes, but exclusively for taking pictures. There was even a rough list of what I want: microstomy (for photos for the article); sarcoscifa – take a picture and try it, I have never held it in my hands before; morels, lines, because I also never held it in my hands; Well, from non-spring ones – common cracker, exclusively for photographs for the article.
First find:
At first, from a distance, it seemed to me that it was something that had overwintered (when we got out for such a walk in March, there was still snow in the forest in places, I found a thawed goblet goblet, which looked surprisingly good). But upon closer examination, it turned out that these mushrooms are by no means last year's, but completely fresh, there are young ones, everything looks great. And I, it turns out, have no idea what it is! Other photos, more detailed, are here: https://wikigrib.ru/raspoznavaniye-gribov-39809/
Literally a few steps from this clearing, on the side of a clearing, about twenty centimeters from the run-down track, I look – as if acorn hats are lying around. Looked closely – oh! Yes, it's mushrooms! Small neat saucers:
And these saucers turned out to be Dumontinia knobby.
At first, the third mushroom seemed very commonplace to me:
Until this year, we never went mushroom picking in April. I know about all spring species only theoretically. Therefore, I took the mushroom home (it was only one, I looked around and did not find anything, small, although it looks huge in the photo, in fact, only 7 centimeters in height and the width of the cap is no more than 6 centimeters at its widest point), I did not take it from gastronomic considerations, but with the thought to study properly. I cut it open, of course, and was amazed: a tick lurked in the folds.
Of course, I am not an expert, maybe this is some kind of mushroom mite that is indifferent to warm-blooded animals, but the last couple of years there have been an incredibly many mites. Immediately I imagined: you come home with the mushrooms, take a shower, spin for half an hour in front of the mirror, checking if anyone has clung to, then you start processing the mushrooms, and these infections are just waiting for this!
April 6. It was warm, up to +15 and even up to +18 during the day and not lower than +5 at night, there was no rain since the last walk. Snowdrops continue to bloom, but the blue carpet is no longer blue, but blue-violet: the Corydalis has bloomed en masse, the lungwort is blooming. In some places, yellow spots begin to appear: the buttercup anemone blooms.
The list of 'Wishlist' from the last walk has not diminished much. The first thing that the forest gave me when we stopped for a smoke break was an inconspicuous twig lying not far from the makeshift bench: on the twig were light small mushrooms. Picked it up, turned it over, and— Yyessss !!! You are my handsome! Common nutcracker:
We visited a clearing, on which the last time, presumably, tubaria grew in abundance – and we did not find a single one. It is unlikely that they decomposed so quickly, most likely they were collected. The forest was practically deserted on the occasion of the working day, there were rare dog owners and a flock of cyclists. From a distance we saw a lady with a dog. The lady was clearly collecting something in a small bag. It was inconvenient to come up and look in: all of a sudden the dog (a mestizo of the East European Shepherd) decides that we are encroaching on the mistress's prey. Not necessarily mushrooms, it could be nettles, dandelions or other herbs for borscht-salad, and pensioners willingly pick snowdrops to sell them at the entrance to the metro.
There were many lines. Lot. Young, pretty. Approached, looked – is it morel? – no, alas. Covered with leaves, let them grow. There were many brown 'saucers' – dumontinias. That's really – a shaft! There were incredibly many Coca-Cola caps, red ones, from plastic bottles. At some point, I got tired of running to every red speck. And then – a step away from the path, I look, blushes from under the withered leaves. Blushes brightly, defiantly. I grab my husband's sleeve – well tell me, tell me that this is not Coca-Cola!
Bright, in the sun of a completely unnatural, some kind of unnatural color, even now, in spring, when everything is in bloom in the forest, it looks like something absolutely incredible. Truly, something fabulous, an elf bowl, scarlet sarcoscif.
She carefully cut off several of the largest ones, covered the rest with foliage. There are plans to visit this place in the coming days. I brought the mushrooms home, cooked it: boiled it once and fried it with onions, salted it a little. Delicious. I like the dense, crispy mushrooms with such an expressive texture. Interestingly, after boiling, the scarlet color faded a little, but did not disappear. And when frying, he completely recovered. In general, the summary: good, but not enough. Very little!
And the final gift from the forest on this day: a line. I could not resist, I post a couple of photos. He is young and clearly still growing, and out of inexperience I took him, like the first one, for a 'giant line': the height of 10 centimeters, the sweep of the hat in a wide place is not less than 18 cm. And only after a couple of weeks, having figured out question with the help of local mushroom pickers-experts, I realized that this is a 'bunch line', aka 'pointed', Gyromitra fastigiata.
I didn't take it, after the photo session I traditionally covered it with leaves. Let it grow, handsome.
April 10th. Monday. Cool. We went out for a short walk, without much hope of finding something: on Sunday, only the lazy one did not visit the forest, barbecue, music, hubbub, mountains of garbage and trampled flower meadows. For many years I have been looking at this, and for many years I have been amazed: people, why are you such pigs— It's sad.
The two line glades I knew were empty, and only at the very exit from the forest, literally ten meters from the asphalt, did the lines appear. Loose, many, large. But we didn't take pictures of them. Take – even more so. Actually, there was nothing more.
But the forest didn't hurt me. Brought here to such a tree:
One mushroom seemed to me a rather interesting shape, like a butterfly, see:
Here it is even closer. There is something mesmerizing about him!
Now I have a question: does the crackle grow in the second year? All the crackers that I happened to find were more or less semicircular in shape. And this one seems to have grown like 'shoots' on the main fruiting body.
April 15-18. Uzhgorod. Yes, Uzhgorod, Transcarpathia. Brought us there to see the cherry blossoms.
What can I say – it's gorgeous! It cost more than 25 hours of shaking on the train for this. Here it is, a Japanese cherry that has taken root in our climate:
For comparison, here is our traditional cherry and sakura next to it:
The city was remembered not only by sakura, magnolia bloomed in abundance, they love and grow it there, all three of the most famous varieties, here are two large-flowered:
A clean little town, interesting mini-sculptures, interesting cuisine. A beautiful river, forged hearts chained with barn locks 'as a sign of eternal love', an exhibition of Easter eggs, swans on the city pond and a seagull on the lakes. We did not regret that we went. A large photo report on the trip is being prepared, I will post it on my forum, I can give a link.
The general introduction about Uzhgorod can be considered complete, now is the time to tell what mushrooms were found right in the city limits.
Toy railway. Not functional, but not as ruined as I imagined from what I read on the net. Along the paths there are a lot of cut down poplars; the stumps are not yet strongly decomposed. Near one of the stumps, dung beetles have grown elegantly, two of a decent size of the family. One was in a state so blackened that there was only one thing to say about the mushrooms: they were dung beetles. The second bundle was, although already in the stage of mass dying, but not yet hopeless. For myself, I defined them as 'Shimmering dung':
The children's railway is laid along the river. And between the track and the river, as it seemed to us, there is a beach area: there is a kind of cubicle that looks like a toilet, and obvious cabanas. Rare companies go for a walk, mainly with dogs. While we were photographing dung beetles, they paid attention to us, and I would not say that my children are too emotional, almost adult young ladies, students. Perhaps not too abundant tourists are limited to selfies against the background of sakura and Uzhgorod castle?
And on the other side of the same stump, in splendid isolation, a gray dung beetle grew.
The historical center of the city, cobblestone pavement from the Uzhgorod castle. Such is the saw-leaf:
At first, I had the thought that it was a scaly, already very dense, rubbery-woody leg of the mushroom that I tried to tear out from the common heap. However, I was mistaken, it is rather brindle.
25th of April. The snow has gone (again). The fact is that right after Easter from Uzhgorod, out of the abundance of flowers, I returned to the winter, as if I had a ride in a time machine: Kharkov was covered with snow. View from the window:
It was pretty cold all week. But then, of course, spring still figured out what the weather should be like at the end of April, it got warmer, it's time to check how our forest is.
There was a sea of lines, they really survived the cold snap perfectly. I was pleased with this situation, since my husband and I persuaded each other that we still want to try to cook them. And it is safer to try them when they are cool, since there is an opinion in scientific circles that these mushrooms accumulate poison in the heat. Having received full and detailed advice from Sergey in this commentary, I was ready for culinary discoveries. Looking ahead, I will say: mushrooms are like mushrooms. Nothing particularly remarkable, quite edible. We did not notice any such consequences. But, of course, the question of whether it is worth taking risks with mushrooms, which have such an unstable reputation, should be decided by everyone for themselves, and this issue should be approached with all responsibility. Do not listen to your neighbors and do not believe the tales on the Internet in the style of 'That buckets can be used and even henna! We eat them almost raw! '. If you decide to try something so dubious, study the question carefully.
Found a clearing of tubarium (branched tubaria). They were young, small, not the same as they had met for the first time, and I was amazed at how much in this color they really resemble the bordered gallery.
A lonely and sad gray dung beetle met, stuck out almost directly on the clearing, with all its appearance demonstrating independence and unwillingness to be ripped off. We didn't touch him.
And here is such a small brown saucer:
I wanted to pick it up with a knife to take a photo below, but it's too small a mushroom, and only one. Sorry. Let him grow up, maybe we will return to this place. For myself, I defined it as thyroid dyscina. Since the mushroom is considered quite edible and does not have a bad habit of accumulating toxins, I think we will try it too, if only the amount that can be seen in a frying pan without a microscope increases.
To be continued, another sortie is planned for April. Stay tuned to learn more about mushrooms and more!
