Hedgehog mushroom Hydnum repandum

Right now

When to look

From September to December. Favourable temperatures: 6 to 15 °C. It usually fruits 5 to 13 days after at least 12 mm of rain.

Where to look

Habitat

Broadleaves & conifers; fruits when the soil stays warmer than the air (cool autumn nights)

Soil

Acidic to neutral soils (pH 4.5 to 6.5)

How to recognise it

Cap 4 to 15 cm, cream to pale orange-beige, matt and dry, fleshy, irregularly lumpy and lobed, with a wavy margin that is often inrolled. The underside has no gills, tubes or folds, but fine, crowded, fragile spines that come off when rubbed with a finger, cream, slightly decurrent on the stem. Stem short and thick, often off-centre, paler than the cap. Flesh white and brittle, pleasant fruity smell, mild taste becoming bitter in old specimens.

Dangerous look-alikes

• Shingled hedgehog

  Sarcodon imbricatus
  poisonous

  Much larger (6 to 30 cm), cap brown to grey covered with large, upturned scales arranged in concentric circles, blackening with age; spines long (up to 17 mm), white at first then grey-brown and finally chocolate, and not cream. Flesh compact with an unpleasant, spicy smell and a bitterish taste, especially in older specimens; spore print brown. Mountain spruce forests and pine woods. Described as ‘of no interest’ by some, it is reported by others as able to cause gastrointestinal upsets: not to be eaten.

• Scaly tooth

  Sarcodon squamosus
  inedible

  A related, smaller species (4 to 6 cm), with brownish to bistre fibrillose tufts rather than large upturned scales, light russet to grey-brown spines tipped with white, smell of chicory; spore print brown. Sandy conifer forests, especially under pine. Of no interest as an edible, like the previous one.

Foraging tips

There is no dangerous mushroom in France bearing soft, cream spines under a fleshy cap: it is one of the safest species to identify, the other hedgehogs of the genus (Hydnum rufescens, smaller and orange) being edible too. Cook for a long time and blanch older specimens, whose spines become bitter.

Model reliability

Reliability for this species: moderate.

Also in season

• Chanterelle
• Cep (penny bun)
• Parasol mushroom
• Field mushroom
• Horn of plenty
• Winter chanterelle

Where mushrooms are fruiting this week · All species