Pleurotus eryngii    (DC.) Quél. 

common name(s) : Eryngo Pleurotus 

New classification: Basidiomycota/Agaricomycotina/Agaricomycetes/Agaricomycetidae/Agaricales/Pleurotaceae  
Former classification: Basidiomycota/Homobasidiomycetes/Agaricomycetideae/Tricholomatales/Pleurotaceae  
(unconfirmed synonyms: Pleurotus fuscus)  

edibility : edible

photo gallery of  Pleurotus eryngii
photo gallery of  Pleurotus eryngii potential confusions with  Pleurotus eryngii toxicity of Pleurotus eryngii genus Pleurotus  

The cap is white at first, then brown, red-brown to grey-brown, convex, then shallowly depressed in the centre, with an obtuse umbo; its margin is smooth to downy, deeply inrolled later slightly wavy and unrolling up to be up-turned. The cap surface is downy-scaly then smooth, sometimes cracked when drying.

The stem is central or more or less eccentric, whitish to pale buff, tapering at base, without ring.

The flesh is white, unchanging; its taste is weak, mild; the odour is faint, mushroomy; its texture is fibrous.

The gills are white to greyish or pale buff, very decurrent, slightly connected together, distant . The spore print is white. This species is saprophytic. It grows on old roots of umbellifers, even if it looks as if it grows on the ground, isolated or in small tufts, in meadows, lawns, dunes near shores, on remains of umbellifers (Eryngo or maritime cardoon).

The fruiting period takes place from April to December.
Dimensions: width of cap approximately 8 cm (between 2.5 and 15 cm)
  height of stem approximately 5 cm (between 2 and 10 cm)
  thickness of stem (at largest section) approximately 15 mm (between 7 and 30 mm)

Distinctive features : red brown to grey brown cap, depressed when mature; white decurrent gills; central or slightly eccentric stem; only on old roots of eryngo

Pleurotus eryngii is still unreported so far in the forest of Rambouillet, and is quite rare, more generally speaking .



page updated on 14/01/18