Edible, with conditions
Shaggy mane, lawyer's wig
Coprinus comatus
The character that does the work
A tall shaggy white cylinder in disturbed grass. Once it starts to blacken at the edge, it is a mushroom you look at rather than eat.
The specimen sheet, in examination order
01Cap
5 to 15 cm tall, a tall white cylinder covered in shaggy upturned scales, opening and then dissolving into black ink from the bottom edge upward.
02Underside
Crowded gills, white then pink then black, deliquescing into liquid.
03Stem, and the base
Tall, white, hollow, with a loose movable ring.
04Flesh, cut
White, very soft.
05Spore print
Black to purple-black
How to take one06Where it grows
Disturbed ground, grass verges, wood chips, playing fields, and famously through tarmac.
When to look
Typically May 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.
Widespread in the northern hemisphere.
What is worth knowing about it
Excellent, and on a clock. It begins to autodigest within hours of picking, so it must be cooked the same day, ideally within a couple of hours. Unlike the common inkcap it carries no alcohol interaction, but the two grow in the same places and are worth separating: the shaggy mane is tall, white and scaly, the common inkcap grey and smooth.
Confused with
- Common inkcap
- Magpie inkcap
In the kitchen
Cook the day you pick, whole or halved, in a dry pan first. Refrigerating overnight gets you black soup. It makes an outstanding soup precisely because it collapses.
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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