Oyster mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus

Right now

When to look

From November to February. Favourable temperatures: 2 to 12 °C. It usually fruits 3 to 12 days after at least 8 mm of rain.

Where to look

Habitat

Dead wood (poplar, beech), fruits after a cold snap

Soil

On dead wood (any soil) (pH 4.0 to 8.5)

How to recognise it

Cap 4 to 20 cm, shell- or fan-shaped, smooth and silky, bluish grey to slate brown then beige with age, growing in tiered clumps on dead broadleaved wood (poplar, beech, willow). Gills white to cream, fairly widely spaced, long-decurrent and merging where they join the stem. Stem lateral, very short or absent, white, tough, often felty at the base. Flesh white, thin and tough, smell faint. An autumn and winter species, which often fruits after a cold snap.

Dangerous look-alikes

• Jack o'lantern mushroom

  Omphalotus olearius
  poisonous

  Colour decides above all: entirely bright orange-yellow to coppery russet, cap and gills alike, whereas the oyster mushroom is bluish grey to slate brown then beige and bears white to cream gills. Its gills are thin, crowded, unequal and splitting, whereas those of the oyster mushroom are more widely spaced and merge into a network where they join the stem. It grows in dense clumps whose stems, off-centre and flaring beneath the gills, are fused at the base. Its gills are bioluminescent: a faint green glow, visible only in total darkness — a sign that confirms, but whose absence proves nothing. Stumps and roots of broadleaved trees (olive, holm oak, oak, sweet chestnut), mostly from summer to autumn. Very common in the south of France, rarer north of the Loire without being exceptional there; rare in winter, but on the Mediterranean coast it fruits from spring into the cold months.

• Angel's wings

  Pleurocybella porrigens
  poisonous

  Entirely pure white, flesh very thin and almost translucent, without a distinct stem, and exclusively on stumps and dead wood of conifers. Implicated in serious poisonings (neurological damage) in people with kidney failure.

• Oysterlings

  Crepidotus spp.
  inedible

  Much smaller (1 to 4 cm), flesh soft and gelatinous, and gills browning at maturity with a brown spore print, whereas those of the oyster mushroom stay white to cream.

Foraging tips

The substrate settles nothing: the jack o'lantern also grows on stumps and dead broadleaved wood, so ‘only pick on dead broadleaved wood’ gives no protection at all against it. It is the features of the mushroom that decide, in this order: colour first — bluish grey, slate brown or beige, never orange or russet, on neither the cap nor the gills; then the gills, white to cream, long-decurrent and merging, and not thin, crowded and orange; finally the habit, the oyster mushroom forming tiers of brackets on a trunk or stump, whereas the jack o'lantern forms a dense clump whose stems are fused at the base. Stay wary of a fan-shaped mushroom that seems to come out of the ground: the jack o'lantern feeds on buried roots and then appears to grow straight from the soil. Favour young clumps, old caps being tough. Eat cooked, as raw oyster mushroom is poorly tolerated.

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