Chanterelles?

I am comfortable with picking morels, oysters and a few others, but I'd like to be able to learn to recognize and find chanterelles...

I've been watching some mushrooms that I think may be chanterelles for the past week or so and now that the ridges on the underside of the cap are easier to see I am feeling more encouraged.
I'm definitely still learning my way around west coast mushrooms... any thoughts on how to tell true chanterelles from look-a-likes like false chanterelles and jack-o-lanterns?
http://wellheeledhills.files.wordpre...-34-31_130.jpg

http://wellheeledhills.files.wordpre...-34-37_106.jpg

False gills are a give away for correct identification. A true Chanterelle has straight gills that don't fork or fold. the gills on a true Chanterelle also do not run down the stem.
Here is a good guide:
http://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/chanterelle-mushrooms.html

Thank you, Nick!

From the linked article, it does look like Chantarelles DO have forked ridges rather than gills, though (my Audubon guide states a similar key feature). Your link did point out to me though that the Jack o'lantern types have true gills, though... I had missed that when looking for a way to tell them apart. Very helpful!

My Apologies, I mixed the two up. I've never seen one around here but I've been looking for them. Good thing I didn't find then huh?

From the link:
False gills appear as forked folds or interlaced wrinkles on the underside of a mushroom.
and
True gills are individual, blade-like structures. They can be picked off separate from the cap and each other.
and finally:
Note how in chanterelle mushrooms the false gills are decurrent, meaning they run down the stem.

Jack o'lanterns grow in tight clusters with stems attached, Chanterelles do not.

My experience is still from the Southeast, as I haven't seen either out here yet, but there at least, jack-o-lanterns only grow from wood....which may be roots just underground, so it's good to dig down a little....but if the mushroom is obviously growing from wood, it's not a chanterelle. Chanterelles also have a distinct fragrant odor which jack-o-lanterns lack.

We have chanterelles here when we are fortunate enough to have a week or so of summer rain/clouds/high humidity. We have only found them as early as June and some as late as august. Jack o lanterns appear here in the fall (along with the pumpkin type). Chanterelles definitely have forked folds...sometimes very narrow...continuing down the stem and smell kind of fruity to me. After years of looking for morels, orange fungi are fun to spot.
We are cautious and checked and double checked our guides and took some to a local forager for assurance before eatting them....very delicious.

Thank you Judith and Alder!

I got more curious yesterday and went out to investigate a bit more on the "suspected" chanterelles...

I dug down a bit and it appeared to be coming from the soil layer, but the bed is a hugelkultur, so there is certainly wood a foot or so below the soil level. Hard to say for sure.

Also, I broke off a bit of the cap of the largest one. The smell was a typical mushroomy aroma (like Agaricus - button mushrooms), and the ridges (false gills) did not break off easily, but they were thinner and more flexible than I had thought they would be based on the guide descriptions.

Jury is still out for me. I definitely need someone with more experience to help confirm an ID.

David Arora's book, Mushrooms Demystified is "the bible" for mushroom identification. Especially for the west US (he is in Santa Cruz, I believe)...

Another good one is Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest, by Steve Trudell and Joe Ammirati.

There are many others, as well, for the PNW

I have quite a bit of experience with chanterelles in Oregon. In fact, they grow on my farm in wooded areas. I doubt very much they would be growing from a hugelkultur bed, at least one that had been made in the past 15 years or so. In Oregon, they are mycorrhizal with the roots of older Douglas-fir, hemlock, true fir, Sitka spruce and redwood trees in forest soil that has not been dug up or disturbed for quite some time. They are not normally found in gardens. Occasionally, you'll see some growing in gravel by the roadside, but older Doug-firs on undisturbed soil are always close by.
One orange "look-alike" I see on woodchips/woody soil in hugelkultur or raised beds this time of year is Laccaria laccata- the "lackluster laccaria". These are very common mushrooms around my garden and blueberry patch.
KB, I didn't have any luck clicking on the links you provided- if you could provide photos, I could probably help you ID your mushrooms. BTW, it's been a bad year for chanterelles in Oregon. Otherwise, I'd suggest you just go to Fred Meyer and check out the chanterelles in their produce section for comparison! Below are some links at mushroomexpert.com for comparison. Good luck!

Thank you very much, MK Dorje!

Apologies for the broken links to the photos... I will try again:
http://wellheeledhills.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/2012-11-27_11-34-31_130.jpg

http://wellheeledhills.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/2012-11-27_11-34-37_106.jpg

Thank you for the links, I will take a close look at them. I am curious to hear your thoughts if you can view my two photos linked above.

Great idea on checking out the chanterelles at the grocery store. Our local market does not carry them, but if I can get down to Ashland, I bet their co-op or organic grocery will have them.

Regarding the hugelkultur and mushrooms, I was astounded to find several dozen morels in this same bed this past Spring. The bed was only made in the Spring 2011! It is near a large old Oregon white oak, so...

The mushrooms in the photo look a lot like the white chanterelle (Cantharellus subalbidus)- a close relative to the Pacific golden chanterelle that is a dull white color. White chanterelles are mycorrhizal with madrone, manzanita, Douglas-fir, tanoak, chinquapin, evergreen huckleberry and maybe oak. If you have older trees of any of these species nearby, the mushrooms might be growing on the root system of one of these trees. But normally, white chanterelles don't grow in disturbed or cultivated soils. They actually prefer older stands of Douglas-fir mixed with all the hardwoods I mentioned earlier, especially under madrone and manzanita.Here's the link: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/cantharellus_subalbidus.html
If you could harvest one of the bigger specimens and take another close-up photo of the gills, it might be possible to be 100% sure. Also, be sure to bruise the specimen and see if it stains a yellow-orange to orange-brown color, one of the key characters of the white chanterelle. (It would be so cool if you had white chanterelles AND morels growing in the same bed!!) Below is another link with good photos and a description.

M.K. Dorje wrote:The mushrooms in the photo look a lot like the white chanterelle (Cantharellus subalbidus)- a close relative to the Pacific golden chanterelle that is a dull white color. White chanterelles are mycorrhizal with madrone, manzanita, Douglas-fir, tanoak, chinquapin, evergreen huckleberry and maybe oak. If you have older trees of any of these species nearby, the mushrooms might be growing on the root system of one of these trees. But normally, white chanterelles don't grow in disturbed or cultivated soils. They actually prefer older stands of Douglas-fir mixed with all the hardwoods I mentioned earlier, especially under madrone and manzanita.Here's the link: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/cantharellus_subalbidus.html
If you could harvest one of the bigger specimens and take another close-up photo of the gills, it might be possible to be 100% sure. Also, be sure to bruise the specimen and see if it stains a yellow-orange to orange-brown color, one of the key characters of the white chanterelle. (It would be so cool if you had white chanterelles AND morels growing in the same bed!!) Below is another link with good photos and a description.

Thank you so very much for taking time to look at the pics and send your thoughts and links! My apologies for the delayed response. I was able to get some pics, but we have been dealing with the heavy rains the last few days (6 weeks, really! we're up to 12
" of rain since mid October)

Here are the links to a couple of pics that I hope will do a better job of showing the "gills" more clearly:
http://wellheeledhills.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/mushrooms-in-the-orchard-nov-2012/2012-11-30_08-33-58_300/

http://wellheeledhills.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/mushrooms-in-the-orchard-nov-2012/2012-11-30_08-34-30_835/

Based on your info here and on the mykoweb page, it certainly COULD be a white chanterelle... This specimen looks a bit more yellow in color, but otherwise it seems to fit as best I can tell. There are mature large madrones not far from the hugelkultur bed where these are growing. I went over outside my orchard fence and looked around a bit more under the oaks and madrones there but did not see any other similar mushrooms. Several other types, but none that come close to the suspected chanterelles. Quite a few boletes coming up under nearby Doug-firs, though... lots of things I need to identify.

Thanks again and I hope the new pics help.

Yes, those are white chanterelles, one of the best edible mushrooms in our region and one of my favorites. I actually water the white and yellow chanterelle patches around my farm during the summer with a pair of sprinklers to get more mushrooms in the late summer and fall. Keep checking around that area for more chanterelles, and for queen boletes- another gourmet species found in the exact same habitat this time of year.
David Hartley already mentioned this, but the books by David Arora, "Mushrooms Demystified" and "All that The Rain Promises and More...", are the best field guides for our area- good holiday gifts, too.

Great - thank you very much for all your help! I'm really excited to have another mushroom of that caliber growing in one of our beds.

I will look up the Queen boletes and see if they are perhaps the boletes with yellow pores that are coming up under the doug-firs. the mushroom guides you and David mentioned will be high on list. I like my Audubon guide, but it doesn't do the best job in keying out specimens.

Here is one I picked and fed to some of our chickens