Choice
Matsutake, pine mushroom
Tricholoma murrillianum, T. magnivelare
The character that does the work
The smell, plus a very firm white mushroom with a shaggy ring under conifers.
The specimen sheet, in examination order
01Cap
5 to 20 cm, white then developing brown fibrous patches, dense and hard, often pushing up through duff without breaking the surface.
02Underside
Crowded white gills, attached, covered by a thick veil in young specimens.
03Stem, and the base
Thick, solid, white above a prominent shaggy ring, brown-fibrous below.
04Flesh, cut
White, extremely firm, thick.
05Spore print
White to cream
How to take one06Where it grows
Under pine and other conifers on poor sandy soil, usually buried in duff and detected by the smell or by a raised hump in the litter.
07Smell
The identification. A powerful mix of cinnamon and dirty socks that nothing else produces.
When to look
Typically Sep to Nov 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.
Pacific Northwest of North America, Japan, Scandinavia and elsewhere.
What is worth knowing about it
Commercially the most valuable wild mushroom in the world in a good Japanese season. The dangerous confusion in the Pacific Northwest is Amanita smithiana, which grows in the same ground, damages kidneys, and lacks both the smell and the shaggy ring. This is a mushroom to learn by nose alongside somebody who already knows it.
Confused with
- Amanita smithiana
- Catathelasma
In the kitchen
Do not wash and do not smother it. The whole value is aromatic and it is destroyed by long cooking or strong flavours. Torn by hand, briefly grilled, or steamed in rice.
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.
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