September 2008 - Fairy Ring Mushrooms were probably the first wild fungus I learned to reliably identify. I've known for many years that they are edible, but never quite got around to trying them, until now.
What Are Fairy Ring Mushrooms?
Marasmius oreades - these rather charming, unassuming little fungi are very common in lawns and other grassed areas such as parks and playing fields. - They typically grow in circular rings - starting as a single clump and widening a little each year as the underground mycelia spread out in search of new resources.
The place where they grow can often be identified even in the complete absence of the fungal fruiting bodies, by a ring of darker, taller, thicker-growing grass. It's not uncommon for these ring formations to become interrupted or irregular in shape due to a wide range of environmental factors.
IT IS YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY to take adequate steps in identifying any fungi you gather for the table - doubly so if you are intending to share them with someone else.
Informal descriptions, such as the one on this page, are inadequate for full identification.
Rules of thumb or folk wisdom identification methods are frequently unreliable.
Consult a comprehensive identification guide (I recommend RogersMushrooms.com and Wild Mushrooms Online) or best of all, talk to a living human expert.
Identifying And Picking Fairy Ring Mushrooms
The mushrooms appear in circles, lines or arcs amongst grass - with no particular association to any tree. The caps are pale buff when young, about a centimetre across and smoothly conical or hemispherical, they grow to perhaps 5cm in diameter, darkening, especially at the centre, to nut brown.
There is often a pronounced bulge in the centre of the cap (called an umbo). The gills are also pale buff, quite sparse and fragile and sometimes irregular.
The stems, again pale buff in colour, are very tough and fibrous and are difficult to break by hand or remove from the cap without tearing it.
Wild mushrooms are best gathered in a flat, open container such as a basket or tray - a plastic bag will only really suffice for the briefest journey home, when no other option is available - more than half an hour and they start to 'sweat' and may no longer be usable.
My preference, when picking wild fungi, is always to cut off the base of the stems, to prevent any adhering earth or other debris from being shaken into the spaces between the gills.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure here - trying to clean lots of sand and dirt out of your mushrooms is hard work, and not often entirely successful.
Preserving
These mushrooms apparently dry very well if they're just threaded onto cotton and hung up somewhere airy - and they rehydrate well too - in fact, in the wild, they are able to dry out completely in times of drought, then when it rains, they not only soften and become moist again, they will actually come back to life.
Update (2009) - Drying Fairy Ring Mushrooms
They are really easy to dry - I just picked these today and left them in an open dish in an airy place - a couple of days later, they had dried to brittle, corky little things - with an intense mushroom aroma not unlike ceps.
I'm going to use these in a risotto
