Foraging: Deer mushroom identification

Latin name: Pluteus cervinus, Pluteus petasatus, Pluteus exilis and related species
Common names: Deer mushroom, deer shield mushroom, fawn mushroom
Season: Spring, summer, fall (late fall in the southern states)
Edible: Yes
Flavor: Acceptable
Medicinal: No
Nutritional: Unknown, most likely similar to other mushrooms

Identification difficulty: Novice

The deer mushroom is the largest and most commonly encountered member of the genus Pluteus. It's encountered frequently in both North America and Europe, probably contributing to its rather long history, as this mushroom was first documented in 1774.

The common names actually indicate one of the key types of identification of this mushroom, the tendency of the cap to shimmer with subtle reflectivity, similar to the silky sheen of a fawn's coat. But more on that in the identification section. 

Warning: This is NOT an easy mushroom to identify, and there are a fair number of dangerously poisonous and even deadly mushrooms that look similar. Close inspection to gill attachment is required for safe identification. Spore color is an important identification aspect of these mushrooms, so I recommend that if you are inexperienced with this mushroom, you wait until the gills turn pink OR do a spore print before consuming.

A note on Pluteus species

The mushrooms we call "deer mushrooms" and historically identified as "Pluteus cervinus" are actually 3 or more distinct species of the Pluteus genus, including Pluteus exilis and Pluteus petasatus. There might actually be more species that are still yet to be identified with DNA testing. These mushrooms can't really be distinguished by physical characteristics and must be separated by habitat. More on that below. From a foraging/edibility perspective they can be treated the same. 

Identifying deer mushrooms

When and where to find deer mushrooms

Deer mushrooms can be found throughout all states of the continental United States, though they aren't found in the northern halves of the northernmost states. Pluteus cervinus is generally found east of the Rocky Mountains, while Pluteus exilis is found on the west coast. However, Pluteus cervinus has also been reported infrequently in San Francisco, California. 

Like all Pluteus species, deer mushrooms grow exclusively on wood. The true "deer mushroom," aka Pluteus cervinus, grows on logs at the bases of dead or dying trees and on stumps. It seems to prefer well-decayed wood and even when growing on trees that are still alive, it will choose to fruit in areas that have lost their bark. The related Pluteus petasatus can also be found in wood chips. Occasionally, you will find deer mushrooms growing on buried wood or roots that seem to just grow from the ground. I recommend avoiding these specimens as it makes it harder to safely identify them. 

Deer mushrooms can be found spring, summer and fall, and even into mild winters in the Southern states.

Cap identification features

Deer mushrooms grow rather quickly and top out at large sizes. Caps start out as convex (like an umbrella) but are flat at maturity. Mature caps are 2" to 5.5" in diameter.  The mushrooms below grew from the tiny caps on the left to the 4.5" mature caps on the right in just 2 days.

As size is an important identification feature, you might want to avoid specimens with caps smaller than 3" in diameter. Unlike most mushrooms, the young "buttons" don't seem to be superior to mature specimens in either flavor or texture, so you don't miss anything by waiting. 

The caps range from medium brown to tan to taupe (greyish) to beige, often with pinkish or pinkish orange undertones. They also generally have an "ubmo" or bump in the middle of the cap. The center is most often darker than the edges, but that can be subtle. The caps also have subtle striations from the middle of the cap to the edges. 

When mature, the caps have a lot of shimmer / iridescence as seen in the video clip below. This is especially true if the caps became wet from rain or even just dew and then dried. 

Gill & spore features

An essential identification feature of the deer mushroom is that the gills are separated from the stalk. They don't touch it, not even by a notch. 

Pink gills at the early stage of maturity. Notice how the gills don't touch the stem. 

When young deer mushrooms have white gills, but they quickly turn a pale pink or a pale peach, then darken to a dusty rose before eventually becoming a tawny taupe with pink undertones. By the time they become that dark they will most likely be buggy though. 

I recommend NOT harvesting the mushrooms until the gills are pink, as it's much easier to confuse them with other species when the gills are still white. 

When slightly more mature gills darken to a dusty rose. These are already a little past prime.

Officially, deer mushrooms have "pinkish brown" spore prints. Unofficially, there's a broad range of spore print colors for these mushrooms, varying from orange-brown to rusty-brown, to pinkish brown, brownish pink, cinnamon, peachy blush, coppery blush, and various shades of darker Caucasian skin tones. 

A natural rusty-brown spore print left on one mushroom
from the overlapping cap of another. 

The strip below shows some of the colors you might find. If you don't know how to do a spore print, check out my guide here. 

The flesh inside the cap is white and doesn't bruise blue or any other color when pressed, cut or otherwise damaged. 

Smell

Many people say that deer mushrooms smell faintly of radishes or watermelon rind. I'm afraid I have a terrible sense of smell and rarely smell what other people do. That said, I have picked up on those notes, very, very subtly, exclusively on very fresh specimens. Smell is not an essential identification feature, but I thought it was worth mentioning. 

Stem features

The stem of a deer mushroom is white, rather straight or with a slight taper towards the top. Stems are between 3" - 6" long and are subtly, vertically striated. They may have raised brown fibers, though I believe this to be much more common on P. exilis than P. cervinus. The stem has no ring, skirt or ring zone. 

The stem is narrow in relation to the size of the cap, being generally between 1/3 - 5/8 of an inch on mature specimens. The base isn't bulbous, nor does it look to be enclosed in an egg-like sac. Little to nothing is below the ground or the wood where the mushroom attaches, except some white fibrous "roots" that are really mycelium. 

As with the cap, the stem doesn't bruise blue or any other color when damaged. And just as a reminder, the gills do NOT touch the stem. 

Look-a-like species

To rule out potentially dangerous look-a-like species, you should wait for the mushrooms to mature enough that their spores turn pink, perform a spore print and double, triple check that the gills do not attach to the stem. Doing these things will rule out anything potentially dangerous, but we will still break down the look-a-likes below. 

Entoloma species - Potentially poisonous

There are over 2000 Entoloma species and are in many ways dead ringers for the genus Pluteus. Thus, larger Entoloma can easily be mistaken for deer mushrooms, including the most dangerous Entoloma, E. sinuatum. This mushroom is a violent sickener and has been linked to the passing of some who ingested it. Entoloma rhodopolium, shown above, is also a sickener, but hasn't been linked to any deaths. 

Like deer mushroom, Entoloma species have broad caps, relatively straight, narrow white stems, gills that start out white and turn pink and pink or peach spore prints. In fact, the Enoloma family are often called the "pink gills" as a common name.The most important way to rule out an Entoloma is to check the gill attachment. Entoloma gills will touch the stem; Pluteus are separate from it. 

However, Entoloma gills MAY be attached only by a notch, appearing separate at first glance. You must do a thorough inspection of the gills. 

The grey knight - Deadly poisonous

Photo by user Strobilomyces, curtesy of Wikimedia Commons. 
Used with permission, view the original here.

The so-called "Grey Knight" or "Grey Guard" mushroom, Tricoloma terreum, was once considered to be edible but we now know that repeatedly consuming this mushroom can lead to kidney failure and potentially death if life-long dialysis isn't performed or a transplant found. 

In overall shape, size and coloration, it can resemble the deer mushroom, having a grey-brown cap, a straight white stem, and white gills. The gills of T. terreum are attached to the stem, but they are attached by a notch, appearing to be separate. While the cap of the grey knight can't get as large as that of the deer mushroom, the largest grey knights will overlap in size with the smallest deer mushrooms. 

The best way to rule out the grey knight is by waiting to see if the mushroom's gills turn pink, or by performing a spore print. Tricoloma species have white spores and so their gills will remain white. 

Creamy Giant Puffball and White Wine Pasta

A couple of weeks ago, I had an absolutely amazing week, with multiple high points for all of my hobbies. First, my husband and I took a long weekend (Saturday-Monday) to central Texas, doing a lot of rock hounding at the famous Texas Slab in Kingsland, looking for material to keep the tumblers running. Along the way we visited one of our favorite distilleries, Flannigan's, and did some fossil hunting along the highway roadcuts outside of Gatesville. We ended up finding some nice (if incomplete) rudist fossils and blue chert in the Gatesville area and a whopping 61.8 lbs of rocks for tumbling, mostly a mix of cherts, iron-stained quarts, jaspagate (including a spectacular root-beer nodule) and--one of my favorites--hematoid quartz. We also found a few interesting rhyolites, mica-rich rocks, and others I couldn't identify.  

On our way back home we went hunting for Texas llanite, a rare porphyry stone that's only found on one ridge in central TX. The ridge (called the Llano uplift) represents the movements of the tectonic plates over a geothermic hotspot. Llanite is the result of volcanic activity creating rhyolite with bubbles in the stone that would later fill with blue quartz and feldspar--truly gorgeous. Most of the ridge is on private land, but there is just one public access point on TX state highway 16, pretty much exactly 10 miles north of the junction between 16 and 19 in the city of Llano. The rocks are hard, but after a few hours of grueling labor we had about 5lbs of llanite to bring home. All-in-all I achieved all my rock hunting goals, except we didn't find any petrified wood.  

Then on Tuesday, while raiding in World of Warcraft, I finally got the bow off of Prince Malchezaar in Karazhan, giving my hunter the best weapon she can use in this phase.
Then finally, on Thursday the 23, I got lost while trying to pick up Italian during my lunch break and ended up stumbling upon the absolute motherlode of Calvatia craniiformis, aka the skull-shaped giant puffball mushroom. 

When I say the motherlode, I'm talking an enormous fairy ring of the mushrooms with over a dozen full-sized specimens that covered an entire yard. Having received permission to harvest (and after confirming that no fertilizers had been used) I decided to take 4: The very largest, a nicely large one that seemed quite firm, and two youngish and very firm, softball-sized specimens. There we also a myriad of babies (roughly golfball-sized) that I left to grow up so I could harvest them the next week. 

Our First Puffballs in Texas

When my husband and I lived in NJ, puffballs were one of the most common mushrooms we'd encounter, though the giant puffballs (Calvatia genus) were rare. Mostly we would find the small gem-studded puffballs (Lycoperdon perlatum) or pear-shaped puffballs (Apioperdon pyriforme, formerly known as Lycoperdon pyriforme). We would frequently find dozens, nearly 100, in a single place. We found so many we rarely even photographed them, and--to be fair--this was before we owned smartphones. 

With regards to the giant puffballs, we'd only ever found a few. We found a cluster of 6 monstrously-sized Calvatia gigantea along NJ route 21. Since 21 is one of the most famously polluted areas in the Northeast USA, we didn't eat those. I found a fair number of Calvatia cyathiformis (purple-spored puffballs) over the years, but only ever felt a couple were in safe areas and received permission to harvest. 

However, since moving to Texas, puffballs, both small and large, have completely eluded us, though we did find several in while on Vacation in Puerto Rico. We had no way of cooking them or bringing them home and so let them be. 

About the Recipe

This dish is the evolution of one of my favorite meals I would cook while in college. In high school, one of my friends gave me a semi-gag gift, a lore-book called "Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home". The Inn of the Last Home was a tavern in the Dungeons and Dragons world of Krynn. Encompassing trivia, character backgrounds and, strangely, a cookbook section. The cookbook included recipes that--while not exactly world-class in terms of flavor--were generally very easy and quick to make, perfect for someone just starting out on their own. 

The recipe that inspired this dish was called "Shrimp Tarsis". The name was itself a joke, as in the lore of the books, Tarsis had once been a city on the sea, but a cataclysmic event sundered the world and left Tarsis inside a desert. The citizens adapted and converted their famous recipes to utilize fowl and game, rather than fish and shellfish. The original recipe called for turkey breast, but overtime, I adapted my own versions for mushrooms, particularly puffball mushrooms, though the change does make it take a lot longer to prepare. 

Creamy Giant Puffball & White Wine Pasta Recipe

Serves 4 as a main course | Approximately 45 minutes prep + cook time

• 1 lb pasta of your choice
• 6-8 cups of puffball mushrooms, cut or broken into rough shapes, approximately 3/4 of an inch by 1 inch by 1/4 inch
• 2 medium shallots, diced
• 1 cup semi-dry, drinkable white wine
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 tbs flour
• 1 stick butter, 8 tbs/8 pats
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbs garlic powder
• 1 large lemon, zest and juice
• Salt to taste
• Olive oil

1. Start the pasta according to package directions. When you drain the pasta, reserve 2 cups of the cooking liquid. 
2. Mix the wine, lemon juice and lemon zest and set aside. 
3. Add 4 pats of butter and a glug of olive oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. 
4. Once the butter and oil are hot, add the mushrooms and increase the heat to high. Continue to sauté the mushrooms, moving constantly, until they have released their liquid and are toasted brown all over, around 20 minutes. Add additional oil if needed but be circumspect. The mushrooms should release liquid making extra butter not needed. 
   
   
   
   
   
5. Once fully browned (see above) remove the mushrooms from the pan and set aside in a large bowl.
6. Add the minced shallot minced garlic and 1 tbs of butter to sauté pan and reduce temp to medium. Sauté until translucent and fragrant, stirring constantly.  
7. Once the aromatics are cooked through, pour the wine/lemon mix over them and deglaze the pan by using your wooden spoon to scrape up all the browned mushroom bits from the bottom of the pan. 
8. Bring the mix to a boil and boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat, and pour the shallot mix over the mushrooms. 
9. Add the remaining 3 tbs of butter to the sauté pan and melt over low heat. 
10. Remove from heat and whisk in the flour, a sprinkle of salt and garlic powder until smooth. Taste for salt and seasoning and adjust as needed. 
11. Pour in the heavy cream and the reserved pasta liquid and return to stove over medium-low heat. Sauté--stirring constantly, and I mean constantly--until you have a perfectly smooth, creamy sauce. 
12. Mix together the pasta, the sauce and the mushroom shallot mix over low heat and heat through. Serve immediately with a sprinkle of parsley (optional).