Hard effort hunting Maitake paid off (Hen of the woods)

[lenador]

We hiked through thick nasty brush for 4 hours to find this tiny guy and pants full of cockle burs and legs full of thorn pricks.

 Then we left a secret spot that's covered in old 3' wide oaks that we were sure would produce for a wide open public park to scour the thick woods next to the grass line. Once again through some of the nastiest stuff. ( I swear the thorn bushes only grow around oaks). After finding nothing I headed back towards the grass line out of the woods just to find the jackpot on a old white oak right on the grass line.

We ended up with about 30 lbs of edible mushroom. I save the tender stalk for soup and I take the really tough bottom stalk and all the critters I rinse out of the mushroom and dump it in my garden.
Here is some other stuff we found out there.

[lenador]

     We also found a whole area full of this. First person to guess what it is gets an internet high five


We don't have a license or permit for it so we didn't harvest it plus it was on state land.

[mullet]

ginsing?

[lenador]

Ding ding ding ✋

[Pat B]

Jack in a pulpit fruit...and ginseng.

[osage outlaw]

red berries are jack in the pulpit.  Don't eat it     

Here is one I found last year on our property

[lenador]

Yeah...the two grow around each other usually.

[wildman]

Bite into a Jack in the pulpit root and its like biting a campfire of cactus petals.