Sulphur Tuft / Summer / Autumn / Winter / Toxic

Common names

Sulphur Tuft

Scientific name

Hypholoma fasciculare

Family

Strophariaceae

Habitat

Common throughout Britain and Ireland, Europe, North America. Occurs on logs and stumps of most trees, occasionally on the ground on a buried log.

Description

Identifying features:

is a common, brightly coloured woodland fungus found growing in dense clusters on rotting wood. It has yellow-green caps with darker centres and a bitter taste, and it is poisonous. You’ll often see it on old tree stumps throughout the year, especially in autumn.

Cap:

They grow in clusters on stumps, The caps are orange in the centre becoming a lighter sulphur-yellow towards the edge. When young there are fine threads joining the cap to the stem.

Stem:

The stem starts sulphur-yellow becoming browner toward the base.

Gills:

The gills are sulphur-yellow becoming a greeny black with age, adnexed / adnate and crowded.

Smell:

Faint musty smell

Spores:

Purplish-brown spores.

Known Hazards

Known to cause gastric upset, temporary paralysis and distorted vision.

Potential lookalikes

This mushroom could quite easily be confused with Brick tuft (Hypholoma lateritium – edibility up for debate) and Conifer tuft (Hypholoma capnoides – edible) however for most it’s not really worth the hassle of identifying the edible ones away from the none edible in these cases as they’re not prolific. However, Conifer tufts are quite tasty.

 Uses

Due to the toxicity we don’t recommend eating this mushroom.

Extra notes from the foragers

Hypholoma meaning mushroom with threads, fasciculare meaning small group.