Tasty Agaricus

Well these were delicious. Found near doug fir right on the edge of a gravel driveway. Stem buts and random gill bits went to a similar habitat at my own place

Are all the same type of mushrooms.

Dale Hodgins wrote:Are all the same type of mushrooms.

Yeah, I mean, not all agaricus are the same type of mushroom but all three of these individuals are the same type of agaricus. Not sure which exactly. Sweet smelling flesh which has a very distinct composition.

Wow I found 4 more of these. The maggot bits are going to go all over my edges, but I got two with closed caps. I sliced the stem close like a grocery store mushroom, carefully cut a flap in the veil, applied butter to the gills and the barest pinch of salt, and then surrounded them in leeks in a buttered cast iron skillet into a 450 degree oven for 15 to 25 minutes. One of them I also dropped some sesame oil into, which was too overwhelming in my opinion.

One of my new favorites

They look like what we call 'horse mushrooms' (I suspect that's to do with their love of the aforementioned shit)
Even I will pick and eat these-they have no fatal lookalike in NZ.

Landon Sunrich wrote:The maggot bits

and that confirms it-I've never met a maggotier mushroom
I've always just fried them in butter and garlic, oldschool style!

Landon, congratulations on your Agaricus find! Those look like The Prince (Agaricus augustus) to me. This is one of the best mushrooms for the table- if you can beat the maggots to them! The Agaricus group can be difficult to identify down to species, but The Prince has much more yellow coloration on the caps than the other Agaricus species found along the West Coast. The toxic lookalikes have grayer or whiter caps. The Prince is apparently also found in Europe, too. Its preferred habitat is hard-packed soil that is rich in calcium/limestone.

Yeah these guys totally look like late summer sun. They're that shade of gold and creams and browns. I was pretty sure I was going after the mushrooms currently know as Prince until you brought up those Almond Agaricus a while back. Since then I haven't been so sure. That love of calcium bit is really good to know. Same as the portabellas huh? I always do seem to find them on edges near conifers for whatever reason. Coincidence?