The Velvet Shank, February

Monday Mushroom #24

This attractive, little winter mushroom is called the velvet shank (the stem is usually velvety in appearance.)  It is sold in shops under the name enokitake, but the cultivated mushrooms are forced -  kept in the dark so that they look completely different to wild specimens. -> wikipedia!

Velvet Shank - Flammulina velutipes

The ones in the shops have pin-head caps, uniformly white flesh, and very long stems. In the wild they often sprout in the gap between dead elm wood and the bark, and will grow to enormous lengths to find a crack in the bark though which they can emerge.