| Tricholoma caligatum (Viv.) Ricken |
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common name(s) : European Matsutake
synonyms: Armillaria caligata, Armillaria goliath
edibility : edible
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The cap is reddish-brown to blackish (scales) on a cream-ochre background, convex to expanded, sometimes slightly depressed, sometimes slightly umbonate; its margin is white, inrolled a long time, with veil remnants hanging in the youth. The cap surface is disrupting into large patches or scales, adpressed and concentric, denser at the centre, almost dry. The stem is white in the upper part above the ring, and covered with brown patches or scales in the lower part, as the cap, with a large membranous ring or ring zone (sheathing), concolorous with cap. The flesh is white to cream (just beneath the cap surface), thick; its taste is more or less bitter, sometimes mild; the odour is fragrant, of flowers (benzoin), fruit (pear) like Inocybe corydalina, sickly sweet and sometimes a bit foul, of cheese or of chlorine; its texture is fibrous. The gills are white to cream, staining brown with age, adnate to emarginate, crowded . The spore print is white. This species is mycorrhizal. It grows on the ground, in coniferous woods or Mediterranean maquis, favouring warm regions, on a rather variable soil, preferably with pines, also with spruce, fir, evergreen oak. The fruiting period takes place from June to November.
Distinctive features : cap covered with brown patches or adpressed scales on an ochre background; stem white at the top, covered with a scaly sock like the cap below the membranous ring; strong fragrant odour, of flowers or pears; in mild to warm climates, with conifers (favouring pines) Tricholoma caligatum is still unreported so far in the forest of Rambouillet, and is quite rare, more generally speaking .
page updated on 14/01/18 |