(26 votes, average: 3.88 out of 5)
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Trooping Funnel
Edible 
Autumn 
Winter 
Best fried when young and used in soups and stews when more mature. One fairy ring in France measured half a mile across and is estimated to be 800 years old.
| Mushroom Type | |
| Common Names | Trooping Funnel, Monks Head |
| Scientific Name | Clitocybe geotropa |
| Season Start | Sep |
| Season End | Dec |
| Average Mushroom height (CM) | 20 |
| Average Cap width (CM) | 20 |
Cap
Convex with in-turned edge and obvious umbo becoming flattened then funnel-shaped but keeping an in-turned edge. Buff/yellow to having a salmon pink tinge.
Gills
Gills pale buff/yellow sometimes with a salmon pink tinge. Running down the stem. Crowded.
Stem
Swollen and a bit woolly at the base. Pale buff/yellow sometimes with a tinge of salmon pink. The stem is very tough and fibrous and usually requires a knife to harvest them. When cooking the stem cut it into discs.
Flesh
White and firm.
Habitat
Mixed woodland, especially clearings and roadsides. Mainly grows in troops or rings but can be found individually.
Possible Confusion
Potentially deadly Clitocybe rivulosa and Clitocybe dealbatta, pictured, although these mushrooms do not get any where near as big as the Trouping Funnel, so when identifying these mushrooms size matters!
Entoloma sinuatum is a bit similar but has notched gills and a mealy smell.
Melanoleuca grammopodia again similar but with a pale brown cap and musty smell. If you stick to large specimens, over a foot tall, it would be difficult to confuse this mushroom with any other.
Spore Print
White. Subglobose. You should scrape your spores into a small pile to get an accurate spore colour.
Taste / Smell
Mushroomy. Best eaten young although the larger fungi have a really strong taste and are great used in soups and stews. Should be cooked before consumption.
Frequency
Fairly common.
4 comments for Trooping Funnel
Thank you! For the photos and video. This all just confirms that, finally, I’ve found my luck in a mixed forest just outside Reigate, Surrey, on a mid-October weekend.
Found some of these Growing in Abbots Wood in East Sussex. Early October
Very helpful identifying these using this site.
We found these on a wild foods walk in Bradley Stoke nature reserve last week and I’ve just been back to collect some. Flesh on mine not pure white though but otherwise matches everything else. All around 20cm across and nearly that tall…
Thank you so much ! What a fantastic resource. I now realise that I have a wonderful “troop” in the small wood at the bottom of my garden in Herefordshire. I was too scared to use them this year because the book I had placed them next door to a number of poisonous species. My troop and are large ! the caps would cover my face – perhaps 10 m long as a unit and 40-50 mushrooms the last time I counted. I have soup for many many years to come.