🍄 Turkey Tail – The Overlooked Commoner
Trametes versicolor – better known as Turkey Tail, is obviously named for its resemblance to a turkey's tail feathers! While being mostly shades of brown, you can sometimes spot ones with green, purple, and even blue on them. This mushroom is one of the most common to find in the UK. It grows year round with a peak in Autumn. Some people find it easier to spot them once the trees have lost their foliage and the fungi are at their most visible.
🍄 Key Identification Features:
- Cap: Top surface has concentric zones of different colours (mostly white, yellow, brown) and has a leathery texture. Sometimes looks green due to algae. Grows in tiers or a rosette. Width: 2 to 8cm. Height: 1 to 2 cm.
- Pores: White, turning to yellow or light brown with age.
- Smell: No distinctive smell.
- Spore print: White.
🍃 Where to Find It:
Common on dead wood, particularly on logs tree stumps, with a preference for hardwood. You can find this fungus almost anywhere! Look in parks and woodlands. Especially where a tree has fallen, or felling has previously taken place. You've probably been looking at it all your life without realising you are looking at a fungus! Easily mistaken as a fallen leaf, or rotten wood, your eyes will have swept past it numerous times. Once you start spotting it, you will see it everywhere.
⚠️ Lookalikes:
- Bjerkandera adusta– also known as the Smoky Bracket, which can look very similar, but has a grey underside.
- Trametes ochracea - also known as Ochre Bracket, which is lighter in colour, and has a much thicker attachment to the substrate it is growing on.
Use all ID features in combination, and when in doubt – leave it out or get a second opinion from someone experienced.
🍽️ Culinary Uses:
This fungus is too tough to be considered edible. However many people like to collect it for use in teas, tinctures, and fire cider. People use it for its possible immune-boosting properties. Harvest Turkey Tail in Autumn, or the start of Winter to get brewing your own fire cider:
Add you Turkey Tail to a jar with chilli, a roughly chopped onion, chopped garlic, maybe a lemon and some ginger too. Cover with apple cider vinegar and store in the fridge for a month, making sure to give it a swirl every day or two. Once brewed, strain and bottle the resulting fire cider! Take a spoon a day to keep your body fired up during the colder months. (For our full recipe, read our Fungi Fire Cider blog here)
So there you have it – the often overlooked Turkey Tail! Get out there, trust your eyes, and getting spotting that dead wood.
Have you met this mushroom in the wild? Found a specimen with striking colours? Made your own fire cider before? Reply in the comments below, tag us on social media, or drop us an email - we’d love to see your finds and creations.