Beautiful Ramaria (Ramaria formosa) photo and description

Precautionary measures

There are many plants that look like deer legs. Many of them are quite poisonous. Therefore, if you are new to this business, then ask an experienced mushroom picker to tell and show how to correctly collect and distinguish deer legs from other plants.

Remember that after harvesting, before cooking, you must rinse and process them well, because if not cooked correctly, they can have a serious negative effect on your body.

Do not harvest near the pistes, as the plants quickly absorb toxic substances.

The mushroom is considered edible, however, it is not noticed in mass preparations, what to do with it is not clear, but the mushroom is noticeable and you simply cannot pass by.

Let's go together (1)

Reed horn (lat.Clavariadelphus ligula) is an edible mushroom from the genus Clavariadelphus. This mushroom is also called truncated horned, claviadelfus reed, mace and hind tongue. The fungus is noticeable, the fruiting body is club-shaped, not branching, colored in orange-yellow or cream tones. Butterflies prefer to grow only in coniferous forests, and they settle exclusively under pine trees in mosses, possibly forming mycorrhiza with them. You can find them on the edges, near stumps and tree trunks. Reed horns grow in the litter, in moss, on the remains of wood buried in the soil and in densely fallen needles. Butterflies bear fruit in groups, sometimes huge, meeting in hundreds or more specimens. Fruiting is observed from July to November, while active growth occurs in October. It comes across infrequently, but in large groups.

The mushroom is considered edible, 4th category, with low palatability. Massively these mushrooms are not harvested anywhere, it is not clear what to do with it. Polysaccharides were isolated from the mycelium culture of horned beetles, which stop the growth of Ehrlich's carcinoma and sarcoma-180 by 90%. The mushroom contains melatonin, a serotonin precursor and hydroxytryptophan. These mushrooms are natural antibiotics.

The fruiting body of the reed stalk has neither a leg nor a cap, is vertical, lingual, somewhat widened in the upper part (sometimes up to the shape of a pistil), often slightly flattened; height 7-12 cm, thickness 1-3 cm (in the widest part). The surface of the fruiting body is smooth at first, later becomes uneven, wrinkled. The inside of the mushroom is hollow.

Its base is fleecy-felt. The color of young fruit bodies is cream or yellow, and then becomes ocher-yellow or orange-yellow, old fruit bodies are brown with a purple tint. This shade is most noticeable at the base of the mushroom. The head of the mace is rounded or flattened, its diameter is 0.5-3 centimeters. The head narrows noticeably towards the base. The pulp is light, whitish, dry, without a noticeable odor.

The pulp of the reed stalk at an early age is soft, spongy, tender, elastic, then it becomes dry and brittle. A noticeable purple tint appears at the fracture of the pulp. The pulp does not have a tangible taste and smell, but sometimes it can be bitter. Spore powder is white, light yellow or cream. The spores of this fungus are long, cylindrical in shape.

The reed horn can be confused with other representatives of the genus Clavariadelphus, especially with the more rare (apparently) pistil horned, Clavariadelphus pistillaris. The one is larger and more "pistil" in appearance. From representatives of the genus Cordyceps, a beige-yellow color of fruit chalk can be a good distinguishing feature.

How to distinguish from false, poisonous mushrooms?

It is important to remember that horns have a lot of twins, which belong to inedible or even poisonous representatives of the mushroom world.

The first thing to look for when collecting is the color of the bush.At a young age, mushrooms are colored milky, beige or yellow.

Older specimens, which are considered inedible due to bitterness, are bright orange in color. The place of the cut becomes a marbled yellow hue, and when pressed on the fruiting body, a light brown hue is formed. The smell of a mushroom is very similar to that of cut grass.

Ramaria beautiful is a close relative of yellow ramaria, so they are quite similar. Unlike its edible relative, beautiful ramaria belongs to poisonous mushrooms. It is quite difficult to distinguish them, especially for novice mushroom pickers. Sometimes, when pressing on the poisonous fruit bodies, a red tint appears on the pulp.

Useful properties, limitations and recipes

In addition to excellent taste, the slag has some useful properties. It contains amino acids, sterol, lipids and phytoagglutinin. The mushroom is especially popular in Chinese medicine, where it is used to treat gastrointestinal disorders and respiratory diseases. Eating horns can strengthen the immune system.

There is an opinion that this species has an antitumor effect. Young specimens are also used in cosmetology, because its cells are able to slow down the aging process.

Eat yellow corals in small portions. There are no special restrictions, except for individual allergic reactions. After collecting, you should thoroughly wash the slingshots, because a lot of debris collects between the branches.

Like other congeners, slingshot takes about 30 minutes to cook. They are pre-washed and cut into small pieces. They can be used to make sauces, salads, baking stuffing and pickled for the winter.

Delicious recipe! How much sauerkraut is stewed by time

Salad ingredients

To prepare a delicious salad, prepare the following ingredients:

150 g boiled slingshot;
150 g fresh carrots;
one medium onion;
2 tbsp. l. table vinegar;
1 tbsp. l. vegetable oil;
two cloves of garlic;
spices and herbs to taste.

Mushrooms are mixed with carrots and finely chopped garlic. After that, season with sunflower oil, add salt and spices. The resulting mixture is mixed well and left to stand for 30 minutes. At this time, you can prepare the onion. It is cut into thin rings and marinated in vinegar. All ingredients are mixed and let the salad sit for several hours.

Reindeer Horn Salad

The soup is very tasty. For cooking, you will need the following products:

potato;
carrot;
onion;
butter;
a clove of garlic;
herbs and spices to taste;
300-400 g of mushrooms.

The horns are boiled in a separate bowl for 20 minutes, after which they are poured into a colander so that the water is well glass. Then they start cooking the soup. Potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic are added to cold water. After boiling, boiled mushrooms are poured into a saucepan and boiled over low heat for about 10 minutes. Then add salt, spices and herbs. It turns out a light and tasty mushroom soup.

Slingshot mushrooms

Hello dear reader!

I think I mentioned that sometimes I write according to the principle: “what I see, I sing about that”. This is the topic of today's article, and I brought a photo to it from the forest last weekend, when I once again got out to Yashkin Bor.

There, two interesting encounters with horned mushrooms took place. This is a ramaria (or yellow horn, as it is also called) and a reed horn (aka reed claviadelfus). Very interesting, little-known and, as far as I understand, little-studied mushrooms.

And in our northern forests, moreover, they are quite rare.

The kingdom of mushrooms is rich in unique, curious, sometimes (in our opinion) beautiful, sometimes disgusting representatives. And horned mushrooms just belong to those.

There are quite a few of them, but most of the time we just do not notice most of them. Those that I present to you today are from the more noticeable. And even edible! Of course, these mushrooms are not of great importance to humans.

And the overwhelming majority of mushroom pickers simply do not take them.

And rightly so, by the way, he does, because you should not take unfamiliar mushrooms in any case! Even the slightest doubt about the mushroom should lead to a firm decision: "Do not take!"

Although some horned beetles are actually quite edible. And there are no very poisonous among them at all, and the most unpleasant thing that a mushroom picker can expect is a spoiled, tasteless dinner. Which, of course, is also not good ...

Both the mushrooms I met - both ramaria and reed horned - just belong (at a young age) to edible mushrooms.

In addition, if horned mushrooms may not be of great value for mushroom pickers, they play an important role in the life of the forest. After all, mushrooms of different types are, first of all, saprotrophs, which process leaves, needles, dead wood into substances that can be used by other plants in the eternal cycle of life.

Mushrooms are golden horned. Kalocera sticky or deer horns

Kalocera sticky is a mushroom of the Kalocera genus, of the Dacrimycetaceae family.

It is also called calocera mucosa, antlers and horns. These are conditionally edible mushrooms.

Description of gummy calotsera

The shape of the fruit body is branch-like. Its height reaches 3-6 centimeters, and its diameter is 3-5 millimeters. The fruiting body is weakly branched, when it branches as much as possible, it becomes like a broom, and if it does not branch, it looks like a stick with a pointed Rogulskaya at the tip.

The color of the fruiting body is orange or egg-yellow. The surface of the mushroom is sticky. The pulp is rubbery-gelatinous, orange in color, odorless and tasteless. The spore powder may be slightly yellowish or colorless. Spores form on the entire surface of the fruiting body.

Spreading deer horns

These mushrooms grow on a woody substrate and on wood immersed in the soil and strongly decomposed. They meet in small groups or singly. They prefer conifers, especially spruce.

Brown rot develops on the wood due to these fungi. Reindeer horns are found almost everywhere. They bear fruit from July to late autumn.

Edible calocera gummy

It is not accepted to talk about the edibility of these mushrooms, they have an unsightly appearance of something gelatinous, and they grow in damp places, on a rotten substrate, it is unlikely that you will want to try them.

But calocera can be eaten without harm to health, although its taste is very dubious. Culinary experts believe that reindeer horns are of poor quality, since their flesh is rubbery. For food purposes, these mushrooms are very rarely harvested. Still, they can be boiled, dried and fried.

In Bulgaria, these mushrooms are boiled and used to decorate cold snacks, as they have a rich, beautiful color.

Collect only young fruiting bodies, which have not yet begun to dry out and brown.

The healing properties of Calocera gummy

These mushrooms contain a serotonin precursor, hydroxytryptophan and melatonin. Polysaccharides secreted from the gummy calocera stop the growth of sarcoma.

Ramaria mushroom. Ramaria yellow (Ramaria flava)

An exotic species, nevertheless often found in forests, especially in the Leningrad region, rep. Karelia, the Caucasus, the Far East and Eastern Siberia. People also call it yellow horned, coral mushroom, yellow coral. Gardeners may find this self-growing mushroom mycelium on sale called Mushroom Noodles (from Chinese). Mushroom coral can be found from July to October, mainly in coniferous forests. Prefers damp, shaded places, but often grows abundantly in clearings well-lit by the sun. It can grow singly, in small groups and in large formations in the form of semi-rings.

The bushy yellow horned horn really looks like a piece of coral. It can reach a height of 25-30 cm with a total weight of 2-3 kg.From a thick base (which can be called a leg), numerous, sequentially bifurcating branches extend. They are of equal length (relatively long), strongly branched, bushy, fleshy, cylindrical or flattened, smooth, with blunt, irregularly truncated or serrated (often double) ends. At a young age, the twigs are yellow, in a more venerable one they can be painted in any shades of yellow: yellowish, apricot, lemon, sulfur, dirty pale and gray-yellow, golden ocher or creamy, at maturity - ocher or orange ... Closer to the so-called stalk, the fruiting body is sulfur-yellow. The base itself is thick, 2 to 8 cm high, 4 to 5 cm in diameter, tapering downward. It is dense, whitish or yellowish in color (usually monochromatic with branches). It can be covered with reddish spots of various sizes or darkens when pressed (to a reddish or wine-brown color). The pulp is white, off-white or yellowish, it looks like marble in the leg, does not change color at the fracture or becomes reddish-brown. Watery, with a pleasant, slightly grassy odor, in youth it is fragile, soft, with a pleasant or insipid taste, with age it begins to taste bitter (especially the tops) and becomes rubbery.

Can be confused with other types of ramarias:

- golden (has a whitish base and shorter branches);

- with a weakly poisonous beautiful tricolor ramaria (it has yellow and ocher-brownish branches (the main ones with a pinkish tinge), with a bright pink leg in youth and whitish in maturity, with a slightly bitter pulp);

The mushroom is edible. Young sprigs of slingshot are especially tasty in mushroom soups. You can salt (before salting, you need to pre-boil for 10 minutes). In adults, the top of the twigs can be bitter, so they are usually removed.

Application

Mushrooms are used for medicinal purposes

Deer horns have a lot of useful properties due to their chemical composition.

Application in medicine

From their micellar structure, they learned to isolate polysaccharides, which have the property of stopping Ehrlich's carcinoma. It is scientifically proven that the extract from blackberries successfully fights sarcoma.

These organisms are natural antibiotics and contain a serotonin precursor and hydroxy tryptophan. For medicinal alcoholic tinctures, they are harvested young, until the bodies have acquired a dark brown hue.

Cooking applications

A yellow mushroom is added to soups, and a reed mushroom is better suited for pates or caviar. Forest corals are used to prepare delicious snacks and pie fillings. Tongue or yellow are great for frying in batter.

For preparations for the winter, drying or freezing, they are pre-soaked well and washed several times so that all the bitterness comes out and only a pleasant aroma remains.

Harm and contraindications

Only familiar mushrooms should be collected, it is necessary to carefully sort out the harvested crop in order to exclude the ingress of poisonous individuals. Otherwise, severe poisoning occurs.

These unique and beautiful horns absorb all the toxins from the environment, so there is no need to collect them near roads or factories. Even edible species in this case can have a negative effect on the gastrointestinal tract.

It is better for pregnant women to consult a gynecologist before consuming a forest delicacy. For children under 14 years old, it is possible to introduce it into the diet only after consulting a pediatrician.

Ramaria ordinary. How to distinguish straight slingshots

Straight catfish can be confused with Calocera viscosa. On closer inspection, significant differences can be found between the species. The color of the gummy calocera is more saturated, almost flashy. The fruit body can have a bright yellow or bright orange hue. The height of the calocera does not exceed 10 cm. Numerous branches branch dichotomously, that is, the main axis bifurcates and stops its own growth.This branching is repeated many times, as a result of which the mushroom becomes like a bush, coral or a frozen fire. Refers to inedible.

Ramaria ordinary (Ramaria eumorpha) is the closest relative of the straight horned. The species are very similar in appearance. The mushroom is distributed throughout the territory of the Russian Federation, where there are coniferous forests. Fruiting from late July to early October. Grows in groups on spruce or pine bedding, often forms so-called "witch circles".

The vertical ramifications of the common ramaria are distinguished by sharper tips relative to the straight ramaria. The fruit body is represented by a dense bush with a height of 1.5-9 cm and a diameter of up to 6 cm. The fungus is uniformly colored in a light ocher or ocher brown color, numerous thorns and warts are present on the surface of the branches.

Comment! Considered a conditionally edible product with low palatability. It is eaten after prolonged soaking followed by boiling.

Artomyces pyxidatus can also be mistaken for a straight horn. The species has vertical coral-like ramifications. The fruit body is colored ocher-yellowish calm color. The clavicorona can be distinguished from the straight clavicoron by its size: sometimes it grows up to 20 cm in height. Another difference is the characteristic crown-shaped tips, which from a distance resemble the crenellated towers of a medieval castle. The habitats of the species are also different. In contrast to the straight slingshot, the capillary clavicorona loves to grow on decaying hardwood, especially on old aspen logs.

Views

These organisms are divided into edible and inedible. There are no horns dangerous to human life and health. For a mushroom picker, edible horned mushrooms are a real find if you know how to cook them correctly. These mushrooms are relatives of chanterelles.

Edible species include:

golden;
amethyst;
aciniform;
yellow;
truncated;
reed.

Inedible species:

fusiform;
comb;
pale yellow;
purple;
pistillate
fistful;
straight.

Edible baby horned mushrooms are pleasantly scented and easy to cook. Most often they give a large harvest.

Reed horn

The reed horn (Clavariadelphus ligula) is an edible species with a pale yellow tint. It belongs to saprophytes of the 4th category of edibility.

Its branches are in the form of a cylinder, thin, widened at the bottom. The appearance resembles a human tongue sticking out of the ground, hence the name. The reed horned grows in coniferous forests in whole groups in the form of circles, which the foresters call witch.

Their size is small, up to 10 cm in height. The collection begins at the end of summer.

Ramaria

Forest corals - this is the name of ramaria, which grows in pine forests. Its trunk is incredibly beautiful and looks like a branchy marine organism that accidentally got into the forest thicket. The appearance of ramaria is characterized by:

dichotomous trunk;
white color of the inner layer;
hymenial surface (having spores);
yellow.

With age, ramaria changes color to orange-red. It is believed that chanterelles and horned ones have common ancestors, so they have a certain similarity in structure.

Ramaria forms mycosis with spruce and pine. It can be eaten, but it has a bitter taste, so it should be harvested at the end of August and September, since young ramaria tastes less bitter.

Beautiful horned

It is a poisonous mushroom that grows in deciduous and mixed forests. It is characterized by:

height - 20 cm;
diameter - 18-20 cm;
short, thick and dense leg;
bright pink color in young organisms.

Old ramarias become whitish, branch strongly at the bottom, the tips of the branches first turn yellow, and then brown or brown.

Eating food leads to disruption of the gastrointestinal tract.

Comb slingshot

An inedible forest organism that bears fruit in conifers, deciduous and mixed forests from the second half of July to the end of October.Grows in groups of bushes. It has a comb-like shape and a cream or white body color, at the base of which there is a thick, dense leg.

The pulp has a characteristic bitterness. She is fragile and delicate, without a bright aroma.

Views

Edible species include:

golden;
amethyst;
aciniform;
yellow;
truncated;
reed.

Inedible species:

fusiform;
comb;
pale yellow;
purple;
pistillate
fistful;
straight.

Edible baby horned mushrooms are pleasantly scented and easy to cook. Most often they give a large harvest.

Reed horn

Horned animals begin to collect at the end of summer

The reed horn (Clavariadelphus ligula) is an edible species with a pale yellow tint. It belongs to saprophytes of the 4th category of edibility.

Their size is small, up to 10 cm in height. The collection begins at the end of summer.

Ramaria

dichotomous trunk;
white color of the inner layer;
hymenial surface (having spores);
yellow.

With age, ramaria changes color to orange-red. It is believed that chanterelles and horned ones have common ancestors, so they have a certain similarity in structure.

Ramaria forms mycosis with spruce and pine. It can be eaten, but it has a bitter taste, so it should be harvested at the end of August and September, since young ramaria tastes less bitter.

Beautiful horned

It is a poisonous mushroom that grows in deciduous and mixed forests. It is characterized by:

height - 20 cm;
diameter - 18-20 cm;
short, thick and dense leg;
bright pink color in young organisms.

Old ramarias become whitish, branch strongly at the bottom, the tips of the branches first turn yellow, and then brown or brown.

Eating food leads to disruption of the gastrointestinal tract.

Comb slingshot

An inedible forest organism that bears fruit in conifers, deciduous and mixed forests from the second half of July to the end of October. Grows in groups of bushes. It has a comb-like shape and a cream or white body color, at the base of which there is a thick, dense leg.

The pulp has a characteristic bitterness. She is fragile and delicate, without a bright aroma.

Ramaria mushroom. Ramaria yellow (Ramaria flava)

The bushy yellow horned horn really looks like a piece of coral. It can reach a height of 25-30 cm with a total weight of 2-3 kg. From a thick base (which can be called a leg), numerous, sequentially bifurcating branches extend.They are of equal length (relatively long), strongly branched, bushy, fleshy, cylindrical or flattened, smooth, with blunt, irregularly truncated or serrated (often double) ends. At a young age, the twigs are yellow, in a more venerable one they can be painted in any shades of yellow: yellowish, apricot, lemon, sulfur, dirty pale and gray-yellow, golden ocher or creamy, at maturity - ocher or orange ... Closer to the so-called stalk, the fruit body is sulfur-yellow. The base itself is thick, 2 to 8 cm high, 4 to 5 cm in diameter, tapering downward. It is dense, whitish or yellowish in color (usually monochromatic with branches). It can be covered with reddish spots of various sizes or darkens upon pressure (to a reddish or wine-brown color). The pulp is white, off-white or yellowish, as if marbled in the stem, does not change color at a break or becomes reddish-brown. Watery, with a pleasant, slightly grassy odor, in youth it is fragile, soft, with a pleasant or insipid taste, with age it begins to taste bitter (especially the tops) and becomes rubbery.

Can be confused with other types of ramarias:

- golden (has a whitish base and shorter branches);

Ramaria

The ramaria mushroom, which no longer looks like a mushroom, but some kind of coral, is found most often in coniferous forests, especially in pine forests.

Ramaria

The ramarias do not have the usual division into a leg and a hat. Their fruiting bodies are cylindrical, and branch, as biologists say, dichotomously - this is when a trunk is divided first into two, then each of them is divided into two more, and so on.

The ramaria is painted only on top, its inner layers are white, when pressed, they can turn yellow. Almost the entire surface of the fruiting body is its hymenial layer (i.e., the layer in which spores form).

Ramaria fruit body

The young mushroom is yellow, with age its color becomes more intense, and the fruit body is colored orange and even reddish.

In terms of its biological characteristics, ramaria (as well as other horned beetles) is close to chanterelles. However, most mycologists prefer not to talk about the direct relationship of these fungi, claiming that horned, chanterelle, blackberry and agaric mushrooms once had a common ancestor. To which modern slingshots in their structure and some other features are nevertheless closer.

Ramaria is possibly capable of forming mycorrhiza with some trees, in particular with pine and spruce. But even this fact of her life remains unexplored and in many respects mysterious.

Ramaria is considered an edible mushroom of the 4th category. They write that it has a pleasant bitter taste. But only young fruiting bodies should be harvested, a mature mushroom becomes bitter.

However, this is only information taken from the literature (albeit quite serious - for example: "The World of Plants" v.2, - M .: "Education", 1991). I have not tasted ramaria (yes, butter mushrooms, chanterelles, milk mushrooms and other "traditional" mushrooms are quite happy!). Therefore, I do not recommend anything to anyone.

But the mushroom is beautiful! And I think he greatly adorns our forests in August-September, when his bizarre fruiting bodies appear.