Hydnum repandum

 Hedgehog Mushroom, Spreading Hydnum, Sweet Tooth, Urchin Of The Woods, Wood Hedgehog, Wood Hedgehog Toadstool, Wood Urchin, Yellow Spine Fungus, Yellow Tooth Fungus.

Edibility

The Hedgehog mushroom is delicious with a slight peppery after taste. It does marry well with chicken, eggs, Pasta and vegetables however can get lost in very bold dishes such as stews and casseroles. I rate this mushroom very highly and it would definitely be in my top 5 of all edible mushrooms i have sampled.  

Habitat

This mushroom does like limestone soils and can be associated with a variety of different trees including eucalypts, beech, other deciduous woodland trees and coniferous trees. 

Description

To be honest there could be better Latin/Greek descriptors for this mushroom due to its unique visual appearance.

Hydnum (Greek) meaning spongy plant or fungus.

repandum (Latin) meaning turned up or bent backward or spreading.

This is a great mushroom for beginners as due to its unique features, from terracotta bruising that occurs when damaged but also due to having teeth instead of spores or gills. You can see this quite clearly in the photo's above.

Appearance

The Cap is usually around 2cm-15cm in diameter however this mushroom is never truly round. The cap when emerging is convex (rounded) but soon becomes flat even depressed in the centre developing many lumps and bumps. The margin is frequently undulating and often rolling inwards. The colour of the cap ranges from a creamy colour to a light brown terracotta.

The Hedgehog mushroom has teeth instead of pores and gills which are creamy white in colour. Each tooth is around 0.1mm-0.2mm wide and 0.2mm-0.5mm in length and very brittle, if you run your finger over them they will break away from the main cap.

The Stem is usually around 3cm-6cm long and 1cm-3cm wide has an irregular stumpy shape and is an off white cream colour.

This mushroom is very fragile and brittle. You have to be care full when picking to avoid dirt getting up into the teeth as it will break up when you try to rid the mushroom of grit.

Distribution

QLD-NSW-VIC-SA-TAS

Spore Colour  

White  

Lookalikes

This mushroom quite a good mushroom for beginners to identify, by having teeth this mushroom narrows down identification to only toothed mushrooms, but be beware as always as there are lookalikes (see below).

Sarcodon imbricates not considered palatable.