Chanterelle / Golden Chanterelle

Cantharellus cibarius

Coniferous and deciduous forests. Summer, autumn, sometimes also in May.

Fruiting bodies medium-sized. Cap 3-10 (15) cm across, yellow, fading. There are no gills; there are thick, crimped, branched, gill-like veins, the colour of the cap. Stem tapered. Tasty, one of the favourite mushrooms of mushroom pickers. Grows slowly, is almost never maggoty, and even once grown it lasts 2-3 weeks or even a month and more without spoiling. Easy to transport, very valuable commercially. Its nutritional value is debatable, as it contains a lot of indigestible matter - chitin, but it is highly valued by cooks; moreover, the chanterelle is also of interest to medical scientists. Mushroom pickers should not tear up the forest litter and mosses when searching for tiny chanterelles: this harms not only them but also other mushrooms and the forest.