What mushrooms can be found in the spring?

Nothing says 'spring' better than blossom (which you can eat!)

It’s been a slow few months for us fans of fungi – only a few hardy mushrooms, like chanterelles, can survive freezing and defrosting over winter.

The only mushrooms discoveries I have made since November have been a couple of impressive hauls of jelly ear mushrooms (more on this ear-like fungi to come later this week).

But happily, there are lots of things to get excited about now spring is here.

On every scattering of wood-chips, take time to scan for the ‘holy grail’ of the mushrooming world: morels, which soldier up in April and May. They’re hard to find, but in recent years have been found sprouting up on wood chips due to a process called “stress fruiting”.

But, as yet, no such luck (despite being inspired by the wonderful Mina Said-Allsopp, who found a huge batch of morels on woodchip in Leeds, the lucky lady).

And in open grassy fields, keep an eye to the ground for the mealy white patches of St George’s mushroom, which appear around 23 April (St George’s Day). Again, I’ve not managed to find any yet, but here’s hoping…

St George's mushrooms

And also look out for the delicate brackets of oyster mushrooms at this time of year, too. They grow…

Of course, there are jelly ears (also known as Jew’s ears and cloud mushroom), which can be found all year round. In this warm weather are harder to spot as they go hard and shrivelled. They are still good to pick as you can re-hydrate them, clean them up and dry them again for storage, ideally in a cotton bag.

Jelly ears - the fleshy shape of a human ear