Oudemansiella mucida - Porcelain Fungus

Taxonomy

Phylum: Basidiomycota

Class: Agaricomycetes

Order: Agaricales

Oudemansiella mucida, the Porcelain Fungus, is specific to beech wood. It appears in autumn on dead trunks and on fallen branches, and occasionally it also grows on dead branches high up in living trees.

Provided that the skin is peeled from the caps, these mushrooms are edible (although their slimy covering is enough to put most people off). Only larger caps are worth collecting, because the flesh is quite thin.

Identification Guide

The Porcelain Mushroom, Oudemansiella mucida, is sometimes referred to as the Poached Egg fungus - a reference to the white of the egg rather than the yolk, of course!

This fungus is weakly parasitic upon beech trees, and on breezy days in autumn it is not unusual to see what appear to be tiny parachutes falling from high branches after the fungi have been dislodged by the wind.

	Cap 2 to 8cm in diameter, semi-transparent and white, the caps of this lovely mushroom are rounded and tend to remain broadly domed rather than completely flat as the fruiting bodies mature. The gills show through the thin cap flesh, giving the margin a striate appearance. A mucous slime covers the cap during wet weather.
	Gills Adnate, broad and very distant, the gills are translucent white at first, sometimes developing an ochre tint as the fruiting body ages.
	Stem Slender, with a substantial stem ring, the stems are 3 to 7mm in diameter, up to 8cm long, and often curved so as to bring the cap to the horizontal in situations where large tufts of Porcelain Mushrooms are attached to a small area of the host. Above the ring, the stem is white; below the ring it is slightly striate and greyish.
Spore print	White.
Odour/taste	Not distinctive.
Habitat	On stumps, trunks and branches of dead beech trees; also weakly parasitic upon living beech trees, often very high up.
Season	July to October.
Occurrence	Common.
Similar species	There are many other white mushrooms, but none with such translucency and greasy caps that are so specifically associated with beech trees.