Top 20 Edible Mushrooms Popular in Trieste

Mushrooms in the Lactarius genus, including peppery milk cap, leak a milky substance from their gills. Peppery milk cap is unique because its milk has an overpowering pepper taste. This mushroom was first described by Carl Linnaeus, the famed father of modern taxonomy.

Green-cracking russula (Russula virescens) is easily recognized by its pale green cap and its preference for deciduous and mixed forests. An Old World species, its presence in North America has not yet been confirmed due to several cases of potentially mistaken identity with R. parvovirescens and R. crustosa, which are visually similar to Russula virescens.

Orange-capped bolete (Leccinum aurantiacum) is easily recognizable for its thick stalk and colorful red-orange cap. Bruised skin may turn burgundy before becoming gray. It sprouts in summer and autumn throughout North America and Europe, where it is particularly associated with the poplar tree.

The name of the dotted stem bolete is also an accurate description of this mushroom, which indeed does have a wide and dotted red and yellow stem. This species can be found in both coniferous and deciduous woodlands, often in the same locations as its relative the edible Boletus edulis.

Oak milkcap (Lactarius quietus) is a mushroom known for its oily scent. It lives under oak trees, forming a mutually beneficial relationship with its host tree that helps both to thrive. When the gills are cut they produce a milky sap. This is referred to by the milkcap of its common name and Lactarius of its Latin name.

Extremely popular in many cuisines, this edible wild mushroom grows around the world near the roots of forest trees. In some regions, king bolete mushrooms are collected in great enough volumes that their sale can support entire families during the harvest season. King boletes are reported to be high in fiber, vitamins B and C, calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc, and several antioxidants.

The fruit bodies have caps that are broadly convex, measuring 2.5–11 cm (1.0–4.3 in) in diameter. Their surfaces are smooth and sticky, with a pale greyish-brown center and darker brown to blackish-grey margin. The distantly spaced, broad gills have an adnate to adnexed attachment to the stipe, and two tiers of intervening lamellulae (short gills). The gills are initially white before turning gray to bluish-gray in age. The whitish stipe measures 3–10 cm (1.2–3.9 in) long by 1–2.5 cm (0.4–1.0 in) thick, and is either equal in width throughout or tapers slightly towards the base. The stipe is smooth except for a few tufts of hairs near the top. Immediately underneath the cap cuticle, the flesh of the cap is water-soaked; elsewhere in the cap, it is gray-tinted with a sheen, while in the stipe it is dull white. It lacks any appreciable odor or taste. It is considered edible in Europe, where it is prized in some regions. The thin-walled, elliptical spores measure 6.5–8.5 by 4.5–5 µm. The basidia (spore-bearing cells) are narrowly club-shaped, four-spored, and measure 42–55 by 5.4–8.1 µm.

The hazel bolete is a fairly common mushroom that is often found near hornbeam trees, rather than around hazels. When cut or bruised, the flesh first goes red and then turns very dark blue. This mushroom is similar to Leccinum scabrum, but the latter one grows strictly near birch.

The honey fungus is a parasitic fungus that grows on the roots of many woody and perennial plants, damaging and possibly killing its host. It spreads underground and is considered to be the most damaging fungal disease in gardens across the UK. The appearance of the mushrooms above-ground heralds a much more extensive infection below.