Distribution and description of the May row, photo of the mushroom. Spring mushroom May row Boletus or porcini mushroom

Calocybe gambosa

The May mushroom is a strong and large beauty, somewhat similar to cultivated champignons; according to some gourmets, the taste is not inferior to the best summer-autumn mushrooms. May mushroom settles on open area, among the grass, on the edges and in woodlands. Also May mushroom can be found in parks. As its eloquent name suggests, the May mushroom is usually harvested in May. For other mushrooms that grow in May, see, but this page is dedicated to just one species - the May mushroom, or May row.

Description of the mushroom May mushroom

May mushroom, or May row, is a spring cap mushroom. It grows at a time when mushroom pickers are hunting for morels and strings. The mushroom lives in quite a variety of places: it can be found in bright areas of the forest edge, in sparse grass, on the sides of field roads, along the edges of this field, as long as there is more sun. The mushroom also grows in gardens and meadows, and can also be found within the city - on lawns and flower beds.

The appearance of the May mushroom is modest: it is all whitish or creamy - the cap, the stem, and the plates. The mushroom cannot be called small - the cap can grow from 3 to 8-10 centimeters in diameter; The mushroom stalk is short and thick, 4-8 centimeters high and 1-3 centimeters in diameter; the stalk usually thickens towards the base. At first the caps are hemispherical, but become deformed with age. The flesh of the mushroom is dense and fleshy, which is especially striking in comparison with the unusually thin plates, even in mature mushrooms.

Since the May mushroom is a row mushroom, it grows in a cluster, often forming “witch circles.” It has a typical row smell; in the definitions they write “mealy smell” or “smell of fresh flour” (there is an opinion that May mushroom smells of either grass or cucumbers). The mushroom is quite edible, but due to its specific smell and taste, it is rather an acquired taste. Although some consider it a very tasty mushroom.

At first glance, the May mushroom looks like a white mushroom - poisonous mushroom, he's the same white, meaty and dense. But unlike the white row, which appears at the end of August and grows until frost, the May mushroom will grow en masse only in spring or early summer. Another difference: the May mushroom has the smell of fresh flour, while the white (poisonous) mushroom has a pungent smell, smelling of dampness and mold.

The mushroom is highly valued Western Europe, where it is traditionally collected on St. George's Day (April 23), although more often it appears a week or two later. May mushroom, or May row, that’s what they call it: St. George’s mushroom, or St. George's mushroom.

Video from May mushroom

System:

Kingdom: Mushrooms (Fungi)

Department: Basidial fungi (Basidiomycota)

Class: Agariaceae (Agaricomycetes)

Order: Champignonaceae (Agaricales)

Family: Lyophyllaceae

Genus: Kalotsibe ( Calocybe)

Species: Calocybe gambosa (Fr.) Donk (1962)

Hat: 5-12 cm, fleshy, first convex, then tuberculate-prostrate, often with a cracked or uneven wavy edge, flat or with a tubercle, dry, creamy, slightly yellowish or beige, off-white, usually with small watery-transparent spots, the autumn form is yellow (see two mushrooms in the collage at the top right). In old fruiting bodies, the cap may acquire an ocher or yellow-ocher tint. The plates are whitish with a creamy tint, becoming creamy with age, narrow, frequent, and thin. The pulp is thick, dense, white, the taste is characteristic, very pleasant, sweetish, the smell is strong, reminiscent of fresh flour.
Leg: 4-10 x 0.6-3 cm, cylindrical, relatively thick and short, dense, narrowed downward or, conversely, expanded, fibrous, whitish, brownish-cream or yellowish, often ocher or rusty-ocher at the base.
Habitat: thinned light deciduous forests and forest edges, woodlands, parks, grows in grassy areas, pastures, pastures, in gardens, near settlements, within the city, often, in places abundantly.
Fruiting period: mid-May - end of June, sometimes in September.
Distribution in the Russian Federation: European part, throughout the forest zone.

Edibility: May mushrooms have a pleasant and delicate taste. For me it is the smell and taste of spring. Some people don’t like them because of their distinct mealy smell, but when cooked they completely lose this aroma. In Europe the most popular dish are fried May rows: they are poured with a small amount of salted water and left for an hour or two, then washed, peeled and cut, after which they are simply fried with onions until golden brown. It turns out very simply, and at the same time extremely tasty and aromatic. As an option, quickly fry with onions or garlic and place on buttered toast, salt and pepper.

May mushrooms are great for pickling, marinade and drying. They are often used in broths and sauces, risotto and omelettes, giving dishes a subtle, pleasant aroma; very good and stewed. Both young and mature specimens are suitable for food. It is noteworthy that dried mushrooms perfectly retain their delicious properties and can be used for any dishes after preliminary soaking. In Europe, they are often eaten raw as mushrooms in salads.

The best method of pickling for May row is hot and boiled for about 20 minutes.

When pickling, unlike all other rows and talkers, you need to categorically avoid strong seasonings and spices. No cloves, pepper, garlic, bay leaf. Meanwhile, it is quite possible to add onions and carrots. The May row's own aroma is so strong and good that there is no need to shade or dilute it with anything. By and large, salt, sugar and vinegar are all that is required to pickle the May mushroom. Moreover, you can take 1.5–2 times more sugar than in a regular recipe (these rows are sweet in themselves, and they react very correctly to sugar). As a result, you will get spicy-sweet mushrooms in a transparent marinade, with an excellent taste of their own.

Medicinal properties: dichloromethane extract has bactericidal properties (detrimental effect on Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli). Contains antibiotic substances that suppress the development of tuberculosis bacillus.

It has an anti-cancer effect (completely suppresses sarcoma-180 and Ehrlich carcinoma).

German biochemists have identified the antidiabetic effect of this mushroom, noting a significant decrease in blood sugar levels with its regular use.

Normalizes metabolism.

IN folk medicine mushrooms are not used.

The May row is popularly called the May mushroom, T-shirt. But it has another name - St. George's mushroom, because active fruiting of this row usually occurs in the first half of May, when Christians celebrate St. George (May 6). Scientific name - Calocybe gambosa, or May calocybe.

This mushroom appears in the third ten days of April, bears fruit throughout May and leaves in early June until next year. Grows well in deciduous and mixed forests and plantings, in particular, in the Kumzhenskaya Grove, in the Shchepkinsky Nature Reserve. Mike can be found in parks, in gardens, and on lawns and flower beds within the city; it grows both on completely bare soil and in dense thickets of grass. Unpretentious mushroom.

And incredibly productive. From one mycelium, the “witch’s circle,” I once collected more than a hundred fruiting bodies. And it was a very modest mycelium. And the T-shirt grows in a good mycelium very closely, cap to cap. Its mycelium penetrates any obstacles, the T-shirt often gets into the very jungle, in the windfall.

I met her many years ago on one rainy day at the end of April. I went to the Kumzhenskaya grove, and I saw people collecting some porcini mushrooms, which they came across almost at every step. No one could really say what kind of mushrooms they were. “We’ve been collecting for a long time.” Well, I collected it. And the next day the whole family ate an unusually tasty mushroom stew in sour cream.

This mushroom has some features that make it difficult to confuse it with other mushrooms. Firstly, there is a strong, distinct “floury” smell. Not everyone likes this smell. And in my opinion, this is the most mushroom smell. Very nice.

The mushroom itself is dense, strong, white or beige, relatively short-legged, of medium size: the caps are rarely more than 10 cm in diameter. The plates are frequent, also white or beige, sometimes with a yellowish tint.

Another feature: the hats on T-shirts are rarely even. But all sorts of “squiggles” and “ruffles” are in the order of things.

And another interesting thing. There are mushrooms with yellowish caps, often uneven in color (yellower towards the center). What this is connected with is unknown. There was even an opinion that mushrooms with yellowish caps were a different species altogether. But I often saw May rows with both white and yellowing caps, and the mushrooms clearly grew from the same mycelium. So yellowness is simply a sign of variation of one species, nothing more.

The mushroom does not lose its density even when culinary processing. Therefore, it is universal: it’s good in a frying pan, great as a stew, and looks beautiful in a jar, among other things! Of course, during dry periods, even the friendly and unpretentious T-shirt grows sluggishly, reluctantly, and even grows small, very dense, with cracked caps.

And during periods of excess moisture, especially in thick grass, the May mushroom is often large but flimsy.

However, these are extreme cases. In their normal state, these are very pleasant mushrooms in all respects. Don't miss the opportunity to meet them!

P.S. May row is often confused with garden entoloma, which grows at the same time. It’s not scary to confuse: garden entoloma - edible mushroom. It differs from the May row: it grows under rosaceae (thorns, hawthorns, fruit trees, very often under poles, which is why it is popularly called “porcelain”), the caps usually have a tubercle in the center, never turn yellow, the color is off-white or ivory bones, to grayish, plates are wide and rather sparse, turning slightly pink over time. The smell of entoloma does not have the intensity of a T-shirt. If you wet the cap of an entoloma, it becomes slippery, as if soaped. This effect is not observed in the May row.

Quiet hunting for mushrooms, contrary to popular belief, begins not with the approach of autumn, but in the spring, when May mushrooms appear, growing crowded. You can collect a whole basket of them and pamper them with seven dishes of fresh mushrooms already in May.

Name of the mushroom

Little-known May mushrooms in scientific communities usually called calocybe (this name comes from the name of the genus Calocybe). People call them differently - May row, St. George's mushroom. And the mushrooms of their family Tricholomataceae are simply called T-shirt.

Habitats

St. George's mushroom appears in May and is found until July in temperate zones of Russia. He does not grow alone, he prefers to form large groups in woodlands, grassy areas, parks, gardens, pastures, pastures, along the edges. By appearance May mushroom resembles a champignon. Its aroma and taste are similar to that of

Description of the May mushroom

Kalotsibe May has a fleshy dry cap, the diameter of which can reach 12 centimeters. At first it is convex. As it grows it becomes prostrate. Its wavy edges often crack. It can be flat or with a tubercle. The cap is painted in cream, yellowish or off-white tones.

It is endowed with thick, dense, soft, white pulp with a mealy odor and taste. An unpopular May mushroom, the photo of which perfectly demonstrates it characteristics, has pulp lined with frequent notched or fused plates with a tooth and a stalk. The color of the plates is whitish with cream shades.

Coloring spore powder creamy The spores are ovoid or ellipsoid in shape. The length of the leg is ten centimeters, width - three. It is dense, fibrous, club-shaped. The color range of the legs varies from whitish tones to yellowish and whitish-cream shades.

Young May mushrooms are easily confused with poisonous entoloma. Although there are serious differences between them. It has a brown cap with brown plates. The cap turns red at the break.

Beneficial features

St. George's mushrooms are unique. They have a balanced composition. They are rich in protein compounds, amino acids, and vitamin-mineral complex. They are classified as the fourth category of edible mushrooms.

Since ancient times, Chinese, Japanese and Roman healers have used May mushrooms to make medicines. Tinctures and extracts were prepared from them. Medicines treated heart and digestive tract diseases. They relieved migraines and

The vitamin-mineral complex strengthens the immune system, stimulates the brain and leads to the harmonious functioning of the body. Thanks to this, the walls of blood vessels are strengthened and hematopoiesis improves. Doctors compare the May row with food made from animal liver.

The row contains melanin, a powerful natural antioxidant. It, saturated with mushroom chitin, helps cleanse the body. Chitin plays the role of a sponge that draws in waste and toxins. Bound ones leave the body naturally.

Possible harm

May row is a harmless mushroom. It is fried, salted, pickled, without resorting to preliminary boiling. However, when assembling a row, you must follow the rules. When collecting, you need complete confidence that it is Kalocybe and not the poisonous entomola that ends up in the basket. The fungal body tends to accumulate easily harmful substances. Therefore, mushrooms are not collected in traffic areas and near cities.

The rows must be processed immediately after collection. Long-term storage has a detrimental effect on their quality. They are from useful product turn into harmful food that can lead to disastrous consequences.

The May mushroom, as the name suggests, appears in the forests of the European part of Russia at the end of spring. People often call it the May row, T-shirt or St. George's mushroom. In scientific reference books you can often find the name Calocybe may (from the name of the genus Calocybe).

We invite you to read the description of the Mike mushroom, look at the photo of the May mushroom, and also find out some Interesting Facts about Kalocybe and get information about its medicinal properties.

Family: Rowers (Tricholomataceae).

Synonyms: May row, May kalocybe, T-shirt, St. George's mushroom.

Description. The cap is 5-12 cm in diameter, fleshy, at first convex, then prostrate, with a wavy, often cracking edge, flat or with a tubercle, creamy, yellowish, off-white, dry. Usually the cap of the Kalocybe is smooth, but during dry periods the May mushroom is all wrinkled, as if dehydrated.

Its pulp is dense, white, soft, the taste and smell are strong, pleasant, and sweetish. The plates are whitish with a creamy tint, frequent. Leg 4-10 X 0.6-3 cm, dense, club-shaped, whitish, brownish-cream or yellowish, fibrous.

The mushroom loves sparse deciduous forests, forest edges, parks, and grows in grassy areas, pastures, pastures, gardens, and near populated areas. Found throughout temperate zone Russia.

Fruiting period: May - early June. Sometimes (quite rarely) the May mushroom manages to slip through for the second time a year in the fall (usually September). It appears in very small quantities in the same places where it grew in the spring; the caps of such mushrooms are yellowish in color. Previously, such autumn rashes were considered to be mushrooms of another species (C. georgii).

Similar species. Taking into account the timing and place of fruiting, the mushroom cannot be confused with any other species.

Medicinal properties: Dichloromethane extract has bactericidal properties (detrimental effect on Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli). Contains antibiotic substances that suppress the development of tuberculosis bacillus. It has an anti-cancer effect (completely suppresses sarcoma-180 and Ehrlich carcinoma).

German biochemists have identified the antidiabetic effect of this mushroom, noting a significant decrease in blood sugar levels with its regular use.

Normalizes metabolism.

St. George's mushroom: collection rules and interesting facts

Collection rules: Young fruiting bodies are collected in dry weather. Alcohol infusions are used.