Edible
Enoki, velvet shank
Flammulina velutipes and F. filiformis
The character that does the work
The dark velvety stem base, on a sticky orange cap fruiting in midwinter on wood.
The specimen sheet, in examination order
01Cap
1 to 5 cm in the wild form, orange-tan, smooth and sticky when damp. The cultivated form is white, thin and long-stemmed, grown in the dark in high carbon dioxide, and looks like a different organism.
02Underside
White to pale gills, well spaced.
03Stem, and the base
Dark brown and VELVETY toward the base in the wild form; white and thread-like in the cultivated one.
04Flesh, cut
Thin, pale.
05Spore print
White to cream
How to take one06Where it grows
Clusters on dead hardwood, especially elm and willow. Fruits in cold weather and survives freezing.
When to look
Typically Nov to Mar in the northern hemisphere. Fruiting swings by weeks with rainfall and by a month or more with latitude, so this is when to look rather than when it will be there.
Northern hemisphere.
What is worth knowing about it
Worth knowing because it fruits in the depths of winter when nothing else does, and worth caution for exactly the same reason people relax then. It is another wood-growing mushroom with a small brown cap, so the spore print rule applies: white, not rusty.
Confused with
- Deadly galerina, which also fruits on wood and can appear in cold weather
In the kitchen
The sticky cap skin is best rinsed. Stems of the wild form are tough. Cultivated enoki want only a few seconds of heat.
The techniques, and why they workThis page tells you what to check. It does not tell you the mushroom in your hand is that species, and it cannot. If you are not certain, do not eat it. If you have already eaten something and feel unwell, contact a poison centre and keep an uncooked specimen.
Others in this group