... but a friend thinks they're "false chanterelles." Either way, I have two pounds of them! :) Thanks for the help with ID'ing them.
The yellow ones are clearly Chanterelles, which are usually pretty easy to find around Vancouver. The shallow "pseudo-gills" are diagnostic. False Chanterelles have deeper, narrow normal gills.
Are the stems ends not cut? are U pulling them out of the soil disturbing the mycellium structure below the soil? I thought we are to cut them, not pull from soil. ?????????????????? Thks D ps I was also instructed by a long time mushroom picker to carry them in an open mesh bag. I used a basket. Clean them up a bit more in the woods and leave any bad bits there for the same reason.
Thanks D. I stumbled across them while hiking and got a little overexcited. I didn't know about cutting them, or leaving the dirt in the field (should have thought of that: I have quite a mess to clean now!).
This business of cutting, not pulling, mushroom stems is an old mushroomer's tale. There is no scientific basis to it. In fact, some studies by real scientists have determined that pulling Chanterelle stems out of the soil resulted in increased productivity compared to cutting the stems. Since the mushroom is just the fruiting body of the fungus, pulling it out of the soil is no more damaging than breaking the stem of an apple. I always pull Chanterelles with the stems intact and then cut off and discard the dirty part.
I heard form a commercial picker that new chanterelles would grow from the cut base, and maybe they do sometimes, but the patch I tested never did this. I can tell you from experience that the mycelium knows whether or not it has released enough spores and in many species you cna greatly increase fruitbody yield by playing what I call "fustrate the mycelium" by making frequent visits and always harvesting before sporulation begins. I don't know whether or not this is true of mycorrhizal species, which can usually presume that they can try again next year, but it works well for saprophytes, which use up their substrate and die out. Evolutionary experience may suggest to saprophytes that this chance could be the only chance.