These fungi look similar, don’t they!!

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already worked out that one of these is a tasty edible and the other is deadly poisonous. The clue is in the name! Make no mistake however. If you get this one wrong, you can die.

No pressure… 😉

Velvet Shank/Golden Enoki

Velvet Shank, or Flammulina velutipes, is an edible mushroom found in Europe, the US, and the UK. It’s also known as Golden Enoki. It’s the wild form of the cultivated White Enoki mushroom, Flammulina filiformis. This has been farmed in China, Japan and Korea for over a thousand years. The main difference is that White Enoki is kept out of light to keep it white.

I was ecstatic to find Golden Enoki at one of my Fungi I.D. course sites recently. It’s a tough mushroom, so I suspect it has prevailed despite the lack of rain. It’s known as a ‘winter mushroom’ due to its resistance to frost. I suspect it handles drought well too, looking at its prevalence right now.

I’m going to show you how to I.D. between Golden Enoki and Funeral Bell by studying:

• Substrate – is the fungus growing from soil, leaf litter, a deciduous or evergreen tree? Is the tree live or dead?
• Habit – is the fungus growing in clumps, tufts, or on its own? Is it in a fairy ring or trooping in a line across the woodland floor?
• Macro features and texture – size, gill arrangement/spacing, colours, textures, fine details.
• Scent – a good human nose can discern between fungi by smell. Just because a fungi has a nice smell does NOT mean it is edible…
• Season: Some mushrooms only grow in Spring, and some survive the first frosts while many others die back.

Velvet Shank/Golden Enoki

• Substrate: base of a dead deciduous tree/a deciduous stump
• Habit: small clumps
• Height 4-10cm
• Cap 3-10cm
• Gills: cream or almost white. Paler than cap. Adnate or emarginate (a notch between the gills and the stipe). Longer gills interspersed with short incomplete gills coming inwards from the edge of the cap.
• Stipe (stem): Long, brown, velvety. Tough and leathery when mature.
• Texture: Cap waxy, sticky when wet. Stipe leathery.
• Scent: mildly fruity.
• Spores: White.
• Season: Autumn, all Winter, through to Spring.

Funeral Bell

• Substrate: More likely to grow on dead evergreen wood, often on branches fallen to the woodland floor. Dig down to check whether its growing out of buried wood! Can also grow on deciduous wood!!!
• Habit: Small clumps, or gregariously (not attached but close to each other).
• Height: 4-8cm
• Cap 2-7cm, with a see-through margin around the cap edge, hence the name ‘marginata’.
• Gills: Adnate. Yellow to light brown. Longer gills interspersed with short incomplete gills coming inwards from the edge of the cap.
• Stipe: Thin, often sinuate, with a faint ring. Yellowish to yellow-mid brown with silvery fibrils running down the stem. These look like fine threads of colour.
• Texture: Thin. Cap smooth.
• Scent: mealy, like flour.
• Spores: ochre
• Season: Late summer to end of autumn.

How to tell them apart!

Ok, so I have picked out the telltale signs between these two species in bold. First off, Velvet Shank only grows on deciduous wood, so if the dead wood is from an evergreen tree, it’s not Velvet Shank. Funeral Bell can grow on both, but it prefers evergreen trees.

Below is Velvet Shank/Golden Enoki growing at the base of deciduous wood.

Both can grow in small clumps, but you often find Funeral Bell growing near each other but not touching each other.

The gills on Velvet Shank are paler than the cap, often close to white. The spore print is white, which is very different from Funeral Bell’s ochre spore print. So it’s a very good idea to take a spore print if you think you have found Velvet Shank…especially if you are planning on making soup out of it!!

The stipe (stem) of Velvet Shank is a lovely deep dark brown when mature, with a matt velvet texture. It’s quite tough and leathery, unlike the more fragile stem of Funeral Bell.

Funeral Bell stems are yellowish, with what looks like fine silvery threads running down them. You can often see the remnants of a fugaceous ring, which means a ring which disappears with age. Take a look at the rings on these Funeral Bells below. More often than not, you’ll see just a ‘tide line’ of different colours where the ring used to be.

The flame-orange caps of Velvet Shank are waxy when dry, and sticky when wet. However, just to confuse things and fox the intermediate mushroom hunter, there is another species of Galera called the Autumn Galera (Galera autumnalis). This has a cap which gets sticky when wet too. So I tend to go with whether the dry cap is nice and fleshy , with a waxy feel.

Remember to check if you can see through the margin of the cap. This is a good indicator you have poisonous Galerina marginata.

Don’t forget to have a good sniff. Break a small piece off the cap and smell it. If it smells slightly fruity, thats indicative of Velvet Shank/Enoki. If it smells of flour (‘farinaceous’) that indicates Funeral Bell.

Fab fact about Golden Enoki/Velvet Shank:

If you find a fungi that looks like Velvet Shank in frosty midwinter, you can be more sure that’s what it is. Golden Enoki contain compounds that stop the mushroom from freezing. These are being studied for application in cryogenic preservation of cells. Neat!

Funeral Bell contains amatoxins, like the Death Cap. These attack the liver and kidneys, and just when you think you’ve recovered, you die.

Errrr….meh.

DISCLAIMER: THE AUTHOR DOES NOT RECOMMEND FORAGING FOR GOLDEN ENOKI TO THE INEXPERIENCED FUNGI HUNTER. THIS POST IS INFORMATIONAL. ITS AIM IS TO SHOW HOW SIMILAR AN EDIBLE & A TOXIC SPECIES CAN BE.

How To Take A Spore Print

Place an opened mature cap gill side down on tin foil. You will probably need to cut off the stem next to the cap to do this. You can also use half black paper, half white paper. This is to ensure you can see the colour of the spores. Leave in a dark place undisturbed for at least 4 hours (or overnight). The spore prints can be hauntingly beautiful!

This is especially important when identifying these two species.

Golden enoki – WHITE spores

Funeral bell – OCHRE spores

Hedgewitch Adventures Fungi I.D. Courses

Want to find out more? Come with us on a fun and informative Fungi I.D course in ancient woodland. There’s several sites to choose from.