(46 votes, average: 3.63 out of 5)
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Porcelain Fungus
Edible 
Autumn 
Summer 
Grows in large numbers and is great for the pot as long as the tough stems are removed and the slime washed off.
| Mushroom Type | |
| Common Names | Porcelain Fungus (EN), Cap Porslen (CY), Monetka Bukowa (PL), Gyűrűs Fülőke (HU) |
| Scientific Name | Mucidula mucida |
| Synonyms | Oudemansiella mucida |
| Season Start | Aug |
| Season End | Nov |
| Average Mushroom height (CM) | 10 |
| Average Cap width (CM) | 8 |
Cap
Slightly grey becoming white and covered in clear slime. Convex then flattening.
Gills
Gills white, quite distant and joined to the stem, adnate.
Stem
White, thin and tough and has a small skirt.
Skirt
Has a small but usually visible skirt.
Flesh
Thin and white.
Habitat
On trunks of diseased or dead beech trees and stumps, often in vast numbers.
Possible Confusion
It is not really possible to confuse this mushroom with any other with its porcelain look and slimy top.
Spore Print
White. Has many spores and a print can take less than an hour. Globose to subglobose.
Taste / Smell
Not distinctive when raw, good mushroomy taste when the slime is washed off and the mushroom cooked. Should be cooked before consumption.
Frequency
Fairly common.
7 comments for Porcelain Fungus
Hi, I harvested what I believe to be Porcelain Fungus and they are now dried and ready for consumption. I have since seen pictures of Angel Wings and they seem very similar except for the slimy cap of the Porcelain. Are there other tell tell signs between the two to reassure me I have the correct identification? And do Angel Wings grow in Wales?
Angels wings do not have a stem.
Well I picked a few of these to try as there wasn’t much else about. What really put me off was the thought of eating the active fungicidal drug strobilurin that these contain – and which quite possibly has some negative effects on human beings. I wasn’t sure and neither was the scant research I could find. Eventually I plucked up the courage to eat them – after all I’m not eating them every day – hopefully I won’t overdose on strobilurin! Then I had the slime to contend with. I tried washing it off – it seemed to work – until I dried them with a paper towel to check. It was just an illusion – turns out it doesn’t wash off! Of course not, otherwise it’d all wash away when it rains! So only alternative was to peel them. Relatively easy but oh so tedious! Some of them were rather small. I quickly began to wish I’d gone for the biggest ones instead. They didn’t look as appetising after they’d been peeled. They looked rather like tiny beached jellyfish, but I wasn’t going back now after all that effort! I threw them into some hot oil. Oh dear, they seemed to be prone to getting stuck on the bottom of the pan – quick, lid on – oh, now they’re all mushy – okay fry them till they’re crispy then! They looked like relatively robust little things at the start but in the end they shrunk down to almost nothing. One particularly diminutive crispy blob started off as a whole mushroom! The whole lot ended up as no more than one forkful… well here goes… I wasn’t expecting much. So, was it worth all the effort? Absolutely yes! Fantastic flavour! Rich and lingering. What a pleasant surprise!
I should’ve been clearer. Strobilurin is a family of drugs used as pesticides. The drug that the mushrooms contain is known as Mucidin or Strobilurin A, but it also contains some similar compounds with more complicated names. See: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/taxonomy/139077#section=Natural-Products
*fungicides
Blah blah blah
I forgot to write at the time but after consuming a small quantity of these mushrooms last year as detailed above I later developed a twitch near one eye and my mind felt a bit ‘buzzy’ and confused. This lasted for about a week, only gradually getting better. I wasn’t certain if the mushrooms were to blame or not but all the same I’m not entirely sure I want to eat them again after this experience!
Strobilurins themselves are Complex III inhibitors. Complex III is present in the mitochondria of all animals as well as in fungi. Strobilurins are not really very toxic to humans hence their use in agriculture but the problem here is that who knows what dose could be in the mushrooms!? Dosages aside for a moment, the mushrooms might come in handy if you need a fungicide for the home or garden! Also, it’s possible that these mushrooms might even be used medicinally as an anti-malarial since Complex III inhibiting drugs have found applications in this area.
A couple of different perspectives on Strobilurins can be obtained by reading the following two papers (note how attitudes are changing!):
“Review: The strobilurin fungicides” (Bartlett et al., 2002)
“Toxicity of Strobilurins fungicides: A comprehensive review” (Pandey & Rathore, 2023)
Copies of these can easily be obtained using Google Scholar etc.
P.S. For anybody out there who wants the truly grisly details about how strobilurins and similar drugs actually work and information on advances in the field:
https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1873-3468.13868
This level of detail is not for the faint-hearted! All way out of my abilities in biology and chemistry. This is where I give up and go back to having a simple life!