Wild Catalonia: Foraging for fungi

Today we went with a group of families to hunt for mushrooms in the woods near Gurb (Osona). Gathering wild mushrooms is a popular pastime in Catalonia and most people seem to have some idea of which species are edible and which are not. As today's activity was organised by our local scout group, they arranged for an expert to come with us and make sure that we didn't pick anything untoward.

As novices, we had a lot to learn, but we quickly understood how to identify the Yellow Foot (Cantharellus lutescens) which is known as the "Camagroc" in Catalan ("Yellow leg") and which we found in abundance. The children were very excited whenever they found a patch of these and our baskets quickly filled up. We also found Hedgehog mushrooms (Hydnum repandum) which are known as "Llengua de bou" in Catalan which translates as "Ox tongue". Another mushroom which our expert pointed out to us was the "Bec de perdiu" which translates as "Partridge beak". A fellow mushroom hunter told us he knew it as a "Cama de perdiu" ("Partridge leg"). Both of these names seem quite charming compared to its English common names: Brown Slimecap and Copper Spike (Chroogomphus rutilus). My son was particularly pleased to find something which he described as "Pet de llop" ("Wolf fart") which in English seems to have many names including the Common Puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum). If you tread on or touch these mushrooms they release their spores into the air.

When we returned from our foray, we met up with the other groups who had gone hunting in other areas and compared our finds. Then it was time to clean the mushrooms and to make sure that all of them were edible. The scout leaders cooked them for us and we enjoyed them immensely as part of our special lunch which we ate in the Bosc del Malhivern in La Garriga to celebrate the "Castanyada" which is the autumn festival associated with All Saints' Day (which took place yesterday).

Here are some photos of the mushrooms we found today. I have labelled the ones that I think I can identify. The others I will try to identify once I have consulted my books and friends in the know. I would also like to point out that many of these species have a huge number of common names (in both English and Catalan) and that I have not given all of these here.