Leave Her Wild 2024 | Saratoga Wild Roots

Sterile conk is a parasite that grows predominantly on birch trees
Irregularly formed, resembles charcoal
Causes a white heart rot to develop in the host tree
Spores enter the tree through wounds, particularly poorly healed branch stubs
Chaga contains extremely high concentrations of oxalate, 2800–11200 mg total oxalates/100 g sclerotium, one of the highest reported in any organism
Potawatomi people use the fungus, called shkitagen in their language, as a firekeeping tinder. Read: Braiding Sweetgrass
A little goes a long way! Turn your chaga into tea!

Common polypore meaning "of several colors"
Surface of cap has concentric rings with a white margin
Surface of cap is velvety and smooth
Pore surface is whitish to light brown, with small round pores
Grows in a rosette pattern and tiled in layers in groups or rows on logs and stumps of deciduous trees, resembling the tails of turkey
Polysaccharide-K (PSK or krestin), extracted from T. versicolor, is considered safe for use as a therapy for cancer treatment in Japan where it is approved for clinical use
Another wonderful medicinal, turkey tail tea is easy to make

A cousin of Reishi! See how they are both part of the Ganoderma family? I just wouldn't eat an Artist's Conch!
Grows right on the wood in shelves and brackets
Has a matte cap
Pored fertile surface area
Great fun to etch into the pored surface of fresher Conchs. The lines quickly darken. Let your Conch dry out, then use as ornamentation in your home or garden!

Fertile surface area has decurrent, forking false gills/ridges
Spore print is white
Color is light yellow/tan to deep yellow/gold
Stipe will peel away like string cheese; the inside is white
Smooth caps that develop vase-like indent as they age
Mycorrhizal (unique relationship between mycelium in ground and the trees) with deciduous and coniferous forests; these guys cannot be cultivated
Generally mid-summer, but in my experience, golden chanterelles have a much longer season than other mushrooms
Grow IN the ground, not ON wood directly
Grow in single mushrooms, sometimes very small clumps, but never in large clumps like oysters
Faint apricot aroma

Cap is brilliant red to orange, fading to yellow at the margin; smooth and without warts
Gills are shades of orange to yellow
Grows out of a saclike volva
Stipe has ring; if young, veil may still be attached
Stipe is yellow with orange fibrils
White to yellow flesh without bruising
Choice edibility, but not recommended; many Amanitas are toxic, and there are many jacksonii lookalikes

Herbaceous perennial flowering plant
Waxy white, but some specimens have been described as having black flecks or pale pink coloration
"Monotropa" is Greek for "one turn" and "uniflora" is Latin for "one flowered" as there is one sharply curved stem for each single flower
Commonly found growing in clumps of 2 or more, with its fungal source nearby—look for mushrooms in the Russulaceae family when you see Ghost Pipes!
Does not contain chlorophyll; instead of generating food using the energy from sunlight, it is parasitic