🍄 St George’s Mushroom – The Early Spring Delight for Fungi Fanatics
Calocybe gambosa – better known as St George’s mushroom, and named for its tendency to fruit around St George’s Day. This mushroom is one of the earliest edible species to appear in the UK, along with Dryads Saddle and on good years, like this year, Chicken of The Woods. This chonky mushroom is definitely one to look out for and even a favourite with the mushlings, so try it on your little ones as well.
🍄 Key Identification Features:
- Cap: 5–12 cm across, convex to flat as it matures. Creamy white to pale buff, sometimes a bit greasy in texture when fresh. It’s thick, firm, and often slightly irregular in shape.
- Gills: Crowded and sinuate to slightly decurrent (meaning the gills have a notch as they meet the stem but often in developed caps can look like they run down the stem a little), white to pale cream in colour, and not easily detached. That close gill spacing is a giveaway!
- Stem (stipe): Short and stout – think drumstick vibes – and often slightly swollen at the base. It’s white to pale cream and has no ring.
- Smell: One of its standout features – it smells to me unmistakably mealy, the smell of damp flour. Others pick out lipstick and even some who find it spermatic (yes, that is what you think it means) If you know the smell of raw dough or crushed grain, you’ll know what I mean. Honestly, it’s dreamy.
- Spore print: White – always a good idea to check this, especially with pale mushrooms.
🍃 Where to Find It:
Look in parks and unimproved grasslands, meadows, roadside verges. I often find it under or near trees as well. It’s not clear if this mushroom is a saprotroph or mycorrhizal or perhaps both. It often forms fairy rings or partial arcs, returning to the same spot year after year. If you find one, remember the location – it’s likely to become an annual pilgrimage.
⚠️ Lookalikes:
The main thing to be cautious of are some white toxic species like:
- Entoloma sinuatum – also known as the livid entoloma, which has a mealy smell too but is poisonous, this is very unlikely to fruit at the same time as it is a late summer/autumn species in general.
Use all ID features in combination, and when in doubt – leave it out or get a second opinion from someone experienced.
🍽️ Culinary Uses:
This is a choice edible. Its dense texture holds up to cooking beautifully, and the flavour is rich, earthy, and mildly nutty. It’s brilliant fried simply with salt and pepper - which I recommend the best way to try all mushrooms for the first time. After this I would say experiment with putting it into risottos, stir fries, stroganoff and more.
So there you have it – the glorious St George’s mushroom, a herald of spring and a forager’s favourite. Get out there, trust your nose, and keep your eyes low to the grass.
Have you met this mushroom in the wild? Found a ring in a hidden meadow? Cooked up a feast? Reply in the comments below, tag us on social media, or drop us an email - we’d love to see your finds and creations.