How to identify superfood honeycomb fungus, perfect for beginners

Latin name: Favolus brasiliensis (and related species)
Common name: Honeycomb fungus, chicken breast mushroom
Season: Spring, fall, and cool, wet summers
Edibility: Entire mushroom
Flavor: Fair taste, very chewy texture
Medicinal value: Unknown
Nutritional value: Superfood status: protein, fiber, minerals, micronutrients

Identification difficulty: Beginner 

Favolus brasiliensis is commonly known in the United States as the honeycomb fungus and in South America as the chicken breast mushroom. It's a superfood you've never heard of that's cultivated for by the indigenous people of Brazil. It's incredibly easy to identify, with no poisonous look-alikes as long as some very basic features are checked off. 

Though F. brasiliensis is the type species for this genus, there are many other virtually identical species that can be found in the Americas, Asia and parts of Africa. One such is F. tenuiculus, the tropical honeycomb fungus, which might actually be what I found here, as this species also grows in Texas.

I have been looking for this mushroom for around 10 years, having first found it the fall of 2016 after we moved to Texas, but not realizing it was edible at the time. Despite finding it many times since then, it was always buggy, dried out, decaying or otherwise unpalatable. The relatively dry flesh of this fungus seems to make prone to going bad more quickly than similar mushrooms. 

Honeycomb fungus season and range

Unfortunately, the honeycomb fungus is not widely distributed in North America, being limited to the Gulf Coast states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and their near neighbors, Georgia, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Oklahoma. It might also be found in North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. It is common throughout Mexico, Central and South America, though, as always, this blog is specifically focused on the continental United States. 

It has a distant northern cousin, the hexagon-pored polypore or Neofavolus alveolaris that I have eaten in the past and found to be not very good. The hexagon-pored polypore is also much smaller and rarely grows abundantly, making it much less worthy to harvest. But given what I've learned about F. brasiliensis as a superfood, I wonder if N. alveolaris is as well. 

I've found this mushroom in both the spring and the fall and it's reported in the summer as well, if the summers are cool and wet. 

Honeycomb fungus growing conditions

F. brasiliensis is found exclusively growing on wood that is either recently dead or almost dead. The logs or trees should still have all or almost all of their bark. Though I've encountered it 8 years out of 10 in Texas, I've only ever encountered it on the same tree twice. This was specifically on a barely living tree, leading me to suspect that the honeycomb fungus requires undecayed tissue to consume.  

Cap and stalk features

Note the very short "stem" with decurrent pores

The honeycomb fungus grows like a shelf off of the log or tree. Shelves are between 2" and 6" wide and as much as 4" from the tree attachment to the edge. The mushrooms often grow in overlapping clusters.

The mushroom is often stalkless/stemless but sometimes has a stalk that is very short as compared to the size of the mushroom, no more than around 1" long, often half that. 

The edges of the caps are either smooth half-circles or ovals, or have large, smooth scalloped frills.

When fresh, the honeycomb fungus is pure white all over. It is also vaguely translucent at the thin edges. As it ages it becomes first soft white and more opaque, then cream or off-white and eventually yellowish, especially at the edges. 

The mushroom has an unusual texture. It feels somewhat hard and brittle, like a hard rubber or a rubberized plastic.

Pore surface features

Honeycomb fungus has pores on the underside, not gills! This is the most important identification feature. The pores are white or off-white like the caps and they are shaped like somewhat like elongated hexagons--hence the name "honeycomb fungus." This is an organic organism though, and the pores are rarely even or clearly defined as hexagons. But they are always large and most often elongated. 

The spore print is white, but doing a spore print isn't required for identification.

The pores are "decurrent" which means they run down the stem, if there is a stem present. 

Honeycomb fungus identification checklist

So, to summarize the above your honeycomb fungus should have all of the following:

1. All white to cream color
2. Grows on dead or dying wood that still has all it's bark
3. Grows like a shelf off the wood
4. No stem or a stem that is very short (around 1" or less)
5. A pore surface on the underside--not gills!
6. Pores are shaped like elongated hexagons
7. Pores are decurrent--they run down the stem (if present)
8. Hard and brittle texture that feels somewhat like hard rubber or rubberized plastic

Honeycomb fungus nutrition information

As I said before, the honeycomb fungus is a superfood that you've never heard of. And, in most English mushroom hunting and identification books it's listed as inedible, or even poisonous! But that's largely due to a lack of understanding and a Western preference for mushroom taste over nutritional or medicinal properties. 

Most of the mushrooms eaten in Europe and North America are selected for their sweet, nutty, umami, spicy or meaty flavors, but in Asia, parts of Africa and South America, nutrition and/or medicinal qualities are as important as taste--sometimes even more so!

Recently, the government of Brazil did a study of the wild foods eaten by it's indigenous peoples, one of which was the honeycomb fungus, Favolus brasiliensis. You can read the report abstract here.

But I'll summarize some of the highlights here for you. The honeycomb fungus contains a whopping 27% crude protein--a much higher percentage than any commercially available mushroom. It also contains 17% crude fiber, 1.5% ether extract (fatty acids) and 1.7% minerals. While this is a lower percentage of minerals than some other mushroom varieties, there is an enormous range of micronutrients included. Alongside the nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, and potassium found in most mushrooms, we also find magnesium, sulfur, manganese, copper, zinc, cobalt and molybdenum. 

The protein, fatty acid and micronutrients that are more often found in meat and dairy, make this fungus especially interesting for vegans and vegetarians--though obviously only if it were ever grown commercially. 

Cultivation & history of the honeycomb fungus

In the Brazilian rainforest, the honeycomb fungus is cultivated by the Yanomami people (sometimes spelled Yanomamo or Yanomama). Though the report above describes the cultivation as an aspect of "slash and burn" agriculture, the practice has little to do with "slash and burn" as we know it here in the United States, where the term is most often associated with logging. 

Instead, the centuries-old agricultural traditions of the indigenous people are much smaller in scale and the forest is allowed to regrow after several years. The ash from the burning is used to enrich the otherwise poor soil. The trees that die in the burns also grow mushrooms, including Favolus brasiliensis. You can learn more about the practice here. 

Cooking and eating honeycomb fungus

The honeycomb fungus doesn't have much flavor and it has textural issues. It's rather rubbery, a bit crunchy and can be hard. On the plus side, it does absorb the flavor from other things better than any mushroom I've yet tried, so definitely boil it in seasoned water and consider rich marinades. 

There are several ways to help combat the textural issues. 

• Consider first freezing it, then defrosting it. Freezing helps break down toughness at the cellular level as the frozen water inside cells expands, breaking cell walls and helping to reduce their hardness. 
• Simmer the mushrooms in boiling water, with or without first freezing them. I cooked mine for about 20 minutes to try and soften them. If the water is seasoned, the mushrooms will absorb some of the flavor, as mentioned above. 
• Fry the mushrooms until they are crispy. The Central TX Mycological Society recommends this approach. It can be combined with both freezing and blanching. 
• Experiment with preparations where the mushrooms can be chopped very finely, such as the stuffing of dumplings. This can also be done in conjunction with any of the above. 

Potential look-alike species

With just 8 easy-to-follow steps for identification, the honeycomb fungus really is a beginners mushroom. Anything you could reasonably confuse it with is either also edible or not dangerously poisonous. As long as you don't see gills on the underside. That said, I would be remiss if I didn't include anything you might confuse the mushroom with. 

Angel's wings - Dangerously poisonous

Image courtesy of author Strobilomyces, via Wikimedia Commons. Used with permission.
Original source

Angel's wings mushrooms, Pleurocybella porrigens, were once considered a choice edible, though it was known that some people couldn't eat them and would develop gastric distress. In the early 2000s though, there was a mass poisoning of senior citizens in Japan which resulted in some who did not survive. In all cases those who became dangerously ill or passed had compromised kidney function. It is possible that North American species are safe, but as we don't know, these mushrooms should be avoided. 

From above, angle wings and honeycomb fungus look identical and both grow on wood. But underneath, angel's wings HAVE GILLS. Additionally, angel's wings tend to grow on wood that is more decomposed than what honeycomb fungus chooses, but really just look out for the gills. 

White polypores -- non-edible, non-poisonous

If you follow the simple steps above, the white polypores are the only mushrooms you might realistically confuse for honeycomb fungus. Shelf-like polypores almost universally have pores on the underside of their surface. But in particular many of the white Trametes species will have elongated pores that might look like the honeycomb fungus. The most confusing of these would be Trametes aesculi or Trametes elegans, which I don't have a picture I can use. What I've shown here is the similar lumpy bracket mushroom, Trametes gibbosa. 

None of these mushrooms are poisonous, but they are inedible. You can readily tell them apart from the honeycomb fungus because they are quite hard, feeling almost like wood. You cannot break them with your hands. Were you to try and eat these, they would be very bitter and you wouldn't be able to chew them. 

Oysterling mushrooms - non-edible, non-poisonous

Members of the genus Crepidotus are commonly called the oysterling mushrooms (not oyster mushrooms). They are non-poisonous but are extremely bitter, and so are considered non-edible. 

Oysterlings also have gills underneath, so if you see gills, you don't have the honeycomb fungus. Oysterlings also have brown spore prints.

Oyster mushrooms - choice edibles

Some oyster mushrooms are also pure white and so resemble the honeycomb fungus. Oyster mushrooms are edible and delicious, but are more difficult to identify than the honeycomb fungus because they can be confused with the dangerous angel's wings. Don't try to ID oysters unless you know what you are doing and how to rule out angel's wings.