(The image above is not the best quality and does not do this lovely mushroom justice, but you can see the lovely yellow cap and lacy veil remnants. You can also see the lack of a universal veil on the stem base, which ensures you that this mushroom is NOT an Amanita - the image also shows the classic grayish purple gills that are characteristic of the Stropharia genus.)
Stropharia Ambigua (Gold Cap Stropharia, Questionable Stropharia) that are dried in a carefully controlled environment to preserve the viability of the spawn. Instructions to extract spores are included. (Kit includes a metal tin of dried spawn, and instructions for creating the appropriate substrate and for growing out of doors. Due to a preference for cold temps, this mushroom is best grown outdoors.) Brookhaven Woods strain.
A beautiful mushroom that every mycophile needs to cultivate! If you haven't eaten it, you can't call yourself a world class mycophile.
This is a compost mushroom that loves shade and woody debris. It grows well with conifer sawdust or wood chips, pine needles, or mixed conifer and hardwood litter.
This mushroom may have useful medicinal benefits, including the capacity to help treat some skin disorders. It is anti-fungal in effect, and can be used to make a wash for topical fungus such as Candida Albicans.
WARNING!! This mushroom is listed as a questionable edible. This is perfectly logical since all edible Stropharia mushrooms have cautions with them. The cautions for this one are that you do not eat a lot of it at once, that you do not eat it two days in a row, and that you eat caps only, and cook the mushroom thoroughly. Many sources say this is "inedible", or "unknown", but it is a food that we eat, and other sources list it as edible. In general, most sources which list edibility will say it is inedible if there is any question - we look for a reason, and with this one, we found it, so we feel that it is reasonable to use it as long as you do so carefully. Please read our article on Eating Sometimes Poisonous Mushrooms before you purchase, so you understand the issues involved.
There is no mistaking the smell of Stropharia Ambigua, it smells just like the forest floor from which it grows! This is one of the key identifying features (the other is that it has gray gills). It has a strong earthy flavor that complements beef, stir fries, and spicy flavors. People tend to love it or hate it. This mushroom dries in the wild to a metallic bronze color on the cap.
It is a good garden mushroom for shady woodchip gardens. It produces at times when other mushrooms may not produce, giving you an abundance of bright yellow caps dancing across the patch. And it is purely LOVELY! It has a cheerful yellow cap that sits atop a long shaggy white stem. The partial veil is rather string-like, as though it has been strung between the stem and cap edge. When it breaks, it tends to break into little spiky bits, some of which hang down from the stem, forming a ragged ring (older specimens tend to have only a visible ring zone), and the other part of the veil hangs from the edge of the cap, looking for all the world like a row of pointy lace. It likes wet conditions to fruit in, and will often pop up when the clouds break after a rain.
May be used to culture into woody compost to create spawn, or can be direct sown into the woods, woodchip gardens, or into compost piles that have a high wood content, using several simple non-sterile methods.
Each order of dried spawning mushroom contains enough to create two batches of active spores, which may be cultured and expanded, and then sown into the desired substrates.
Dried Spawn is EASY to use! Just reconstitute in water, and either finely chop or use a blender, and pour the resulting spore and mushroom mixture over your substrate or onto the ground where they need to be sown.
Packaged in metal tins for longest storage and viability. We do not use plastic in handling this product (plastic leaches chlorides, which are fungicidal in effect), and our products are not exposed to chlorine or other harmful chemicals during growth, processing, or handling on our property. You may be assured of the highest quality and maximum growth potential.
NOTE: Dried spawning mushrooms must be selected and handled correctly to produce viable spores. They must also be used correctly to extract spores, and then to culture the spores into the receiving medium. Our proprietary methods ensure viable spores, and we give you instructions for culturing them in a non-sterile environment. (If cultured improperly in a non-sterile environment, things go terribly wrong.) You are not only paying for the mushroom spores, you are paying for our expertise in both the processes we carry out before you see the product, and the instructions we give you for using the spawning mushroom.
Cross contaminations DO occur with non-sterile mushroom spawn (they seem to occur with alarming frequency with supposed sterile spawn as well!). In general, these contaminations are harmless, they may produce other non-edible, or other edible mushrooms, but for the most part, the mushroom you paid for will outnumber the contaminations by many times, and will not establish ahead of the desired mushroom.
Additionally, when using non-sterile methods to culture in natural materials, prior colonizations of unwanted fungus may occur, resulting in the fruiting of unexpected, random mushroom types. This is not at all a disaster, and normally does not cause problems. These mushrooms will typically be inedible, and may be ignored - in our experience, the cultured mushroom still establishes well and will produce well in spite of the interlopers! The chance that a poisonous look-alike would grow instead is virtually non-existent - because dangerous look-alikes don't grow in the same environment as visually similar edible species.
We do advise that you KNOW YOUR MUSHROOM - and that you know what it looks like, so you correctly identify anything coming up. This is wise in every instance, because even when you are using "sterile" kits or materials, rogue mushrooms may grow.
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