Autumn or present honey agaric (Latin Armillaria mellea) is a species of fungi of the genus of honey agarics of the Physalacriaceae family. The fungus belongs to the edible 3rd category.
Description
| Hat | Diameter up to 10-15 cm. Color depends on trees growing nearby and weather, varies from light brown to olive. To the center of the hat, the palette darkens. In young mushrooms, the hat is covered with numerous scales, which practically disappear in old ones. |
| Records | Relatively rare, from almost white to brown with a pink tint, often with brown spots. |
| Pulp | Fleshy, fragrant, bright, darkening with age. |
| Leg | Up to 12 cm high and up to 2 cm thick, with a slightly yellowish tint. There is always a noticeable ring on the leg. |
When and where to collect autumn mushrooms?
Autumn honey mushrooms can be found in deciduous and mixed forests from the subtropics to the northern regions, except for permafrost. Often grow on clearings, appearing on stumps in 2-3 years.
Favorite trees: birch, oak, linden, poplar, but do not disdain pine and spruce. These mushrooms are parasites, that is, they often grow on living trees, but they feel quite comfortable on rotten stumps.
Interestingly, if mushrooms grow on stumps, then the mycelium glows at night. If such a stump occurs by chance, then it remains to wait for warm weather with a temperature above +10 degrees a week after a good rain or dense September fog.
The first autumn mushrooms appear in July, and the latter can be found in October, and in the southern regions even in November.
Productivity is simply amazing. There are forests in which in a mushroom year from 1 hectare they collect up to half a ton of these delicious mushrooms. They grow in groups. On one stump, up to hundreds of mushrooms fit, often fused with legs.
Mr. Summer resident warns: Dangerous doubles
By mistake, you can collect a flake instead of autumn mushrooms, in which both the hat and the leg are covered with large scales. It is not poisonous, but it is not suitable for food because of the stiff, rubber-like and difficult to digest pulp, devoid of mushroom aroma.
Inexperienced mushroom pickers can collect, instead of edible mushrooms, pseudopods gray-yellow, gray-lamellar or red-brown. In the last two cases, nothing bad will happen. These mushrooms are conditionally edible, but it is better to bypass them.
Sulfur yellow false heifers are poisonous, if eaten, the case may end in a swoon and a hospital bed. Their flesh is poisonous yellow with an unpleasant odor.
All false mushrooms do not have a skirt on the leg, but the real ones always have it. Another difference between some false mushrooms and edible autumn mushrooms: a smooth hat, devoid of scales. The color of the plates should not be gray.
Calorie, benefit and harm
| Calorie content | Small: only 22 kcal / 100 g. This allows you to include them in the diet with the most stringent diets. |
| Protein | In fresh mushrooms up to 2.2 g. A little, but they contain all the essential amino acids. Since mushrooms are 90% water, after drying, the protein content in them is greater than in meat. |
| Fats and carbohydrates | A little - only 1.4% and 0.5%, respectively. |
But honey agarics is just a storehouse of minerals and trace elements.
Here, and potassium, and phosphorus, and magnesium, and iron. And there is so much copper and zinc in them that you can cover the daily need by eating only 100 g of these mushrooms.
Copper is involved in hematopoiesis, and zinc is beneficial for immunity and reproductive health. Vitamins C and E contribute to strengthening the body's resistance.
Vitamin B1, which honey mushrooms are especially rich in, is useful for the nervous system, in many countries you can buy medicines for the treatment of cardiovascular and nervous diseases containing these mushrooms in the pharmacy. In Austria, honey powder is used as a mild laxative, and diseased joints are treated with ointment with an extract of these mushrooms.
In Chinese medicine, the use of these mushrooms is much wider: tincture is used as a tonic, and powder is used for insomnia, convulsions, and neurasthenia.
After special treatment, cords of mycelium, called rhizomorphs, receive medications for gastritis and liver diseases, hypertension and acute respiratory infections. This medicine is also prescribed after a stroke.
Honey mushrooms contain substances that kill Staphylococcus aureus, resistant to many antibiotics. Their anti-cancer effects are also being studied. Already confirmed efficacy in carcinoma and some other tumors.
For medicinal purposes use only young mushrooms that are not touched by insects. There are no contraindications, unless people with a sick stomach eat them little by little.
Poisoning mushrooms are also found, especially collected after freezing, if they have not been boiled long enough. For all uses for food, except for drying, any mushrooms must be pre-cooked for 30-40 minutes.
Honey mushrooms are extremely tasty in the soup, especially with beans, and as a side dish with boiled or fried potatoes. They are pickled and salted, dried and frozen for the winter.
From dried make powder, which is used as seasoning, which gives an incomparable taste and aroma to many dishes.
