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Harmless🍽️ Edible

🍄 Oyster Mushroom

Pleurotus ostreatus · Pleurotaceae

🌳 Temperate Europe🏔️ Mountains🌲 Boreal🍁 North America
🧠 To remember it“White gills on wood = oyster mushroom; orange glowing gills in the dark = stay away” — the bioluminescence of its toxic look-alike is a rare but real trap.
Oyster Mushroom — Pleurotus ostreatus

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Wood-decay fungus growing in large, overlapping clusters on hardwood trunks and stumps, and one of the most cultivated mushrooms in the world. Its most dangerous look-alike is the Jack-o'-lantern mushroom, which is toxic and BIOLUMINESCENT.

  1. shell- or fan-shaped cap, 5-20 cm, gray-brown to bluish-gray, smooth surface
  2. white to cream gills, decurrent, crowded, extending far down the stem
  3. lateral, short stem, often absent or reduced, growing directly from wood in tight clusters
  4. white, firm flesh
  5. pale lilac-white spore print
  6. grows on dead or dying hardwood (beech, poplar), never directly on the ground
Sizecap 5-20 cm
Floweringautumn-winter, sometimes year-round in mild climates
Habitattrunks and stumps of hardwoods, weakened or dead trees

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Jack-o'-lantern mushroom (Omphalotus olearius)toxic (severe digestive distress)

To tell them apart: the Jack-o'-lantern mushroom grows in clumps at the base of olive trees and other Mediterranean hardwoods, has ORANGE gills (never white) that emit a faint greenish glow in total darkness (bioluminescence); the oyster mushroom has white to cream gills and does not grow exclusively on olive trees

🍽️ Eating it

Partscap, short stem
Seasonautumn-winter
Tastedelicate, slightly reminiscent of anise

Preparation : always cooked; cook it like cultivated oyster mushrooms, pan-fried or in soups

33kcalEnergy
3.31gProtein
0.41gFat
6.09gCarbs
2.3gFiber

USDA FoodData Central, raw, per 100 g (fdcId 168580)

Sources (3)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.