What are the latest common types of edible fungi?

What types of edible fungi are there? Can you clearly identify them all from their pictures? When it comes to edible fungi, many friends may think of shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, silver ear mushrooms, and lion's mane mushrooms. Indeed, these edible fungi are the ones we come into contact with and are familiar with most often. But there are so many types of edible fungi, how many of the others do you know about?

There are a great many types of edible fungi. The common ones include shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, straw mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, Xiuzhen mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, tea tree mushrooms, silver ear mushrooms, lion's mane mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, red mushrooms, bamboo fungus, button mushrooms, matsutake mushrooms, reishi mushrooms, and cordyceps, among others. The relatively rare types of edible fungi include: morel mushrooms, saddle mushrooms, truffles, and so on.

Shiitake Mushroom

Shiitake mushroom, also known as flower mushroom, lion's mane mushroom, fragrant mushroom, fragrant letter, fragrant fungus, winter mushroom, and fragrant mushroom, is the fruiting body of the plant Xiangxun of the Pleurotaceae family. Shiitake is the world's second-largest edible fungus and is also one of China's specialties, long known among the people as the “treasure of the mountains.” It is a fungus that grows on wood. It has a delicious taste, an invigorating aroma, and rich nutrition. Shiitake mushrooms are rich in B vitamins, iron, potassium, and provitamin D (which converts to vitamin D after sun exposure); they are sweet in taste and neutral in nature. They mainly treat loss of appetite, lack of energy, and fatigue.

Shiitake mushrooms have long been known as the "king of mountain treasures" and are a high-protein, low-fat nutritious health food. Physicians of successive Chinese dynasties all made famous discussions of shiitake mushrooms. As modern medicine and nutrition science continue to deepen their research, the medicinal value of shiitake mushrooms is also constantly being discovered. Shiitake mushrooms have a very high ergosterol content, which is effective in preventing and treating rickets; shiitake polysaccharides (β~1,3 glucan) can enhance cellular immune capacity, thereby inhibiting the growth of cancer cells; shiitake mushrooms contain more than 40 enzymes from six major enzyme categories, which can correct enzyme deficiencies in the human body; the fatty acids contained in the fat of shiitake mushrooms are beneficial for lowering blood lipids in humans.

Wood Ear Mushroom

Wood ear mushrooms mainly grow in China and Japan. In China, most are Northeast wood ear mushrooms and Qinling wood ear mushrooms. Among them, the black wood ear of Tongjiang, Sichuan, is the finest, and has been praised as a sacred delicacy since ancient times, presented to the imperial palace many times; in 2005 it received a personal inspection and investigation by Premier Wen Jiabao. Wood ear mushrooms can be both wild and artificially cultivated. The fruiting body is ear-shaped, leaf-shaped, or cup-shaped, thin, with wavy edges, 3-10 cm wide and about 2 mm thick, attached to the substrate by a short lateral stalk or a narrow, slender attachment base. Its color is blackish brown, its texture is soft and gelatinous, thin and elastic, semi-transparent when moist, and shrinks when dry into a brittle, hard, horny substance resembling leather. It has a delicious taste, can be prepared as a vegetarian or meat dish, and is rich in nutrition.

Wood ear mushroom is sweet in taste and neutral in nature, and has many medicinal effects. It can tonify qi and strengthen the body, has blood-activating effects, and can prevent and treat iron-deficiency anemia, among others; it can nourish the blood and preserve youthfulness, giving the skin a rosy glow and a radiant complexion, and can clear the stomach and intestines and lubricate the intestinal tract, while also being somewhat helpful for patients with high blood pressure.

Straw Mushroom

The straw mushroom originated in Nanhua Temple in Shaoguan, Guangdong. China began artificially cultivating it 300 years ago, and in about the 1930s of this century it was introduced to countries around the world by overseas Chinese. It is an important tropical and subtropical mushroom and the world's third-largest cultivated edible fungus. China's straw mushroom output ranks first in the world, mainly distributed in South China. Straw mushrooms are rich in nutrition and delicious in taste. Every 100 g of fresh mushrooms contains 207.7 mg of vitamin C, 2.6 g of sugar, 2.68 g of crude protein, 2.24 g of fat, and 0.91 g of ash. Straw mushroom protein contains 18 kinds of amino acids, of which essential amino acids account for 40.47-44.47%. In addition, it also contains various mineral elements such as phosphorus, potassium, and calcium.

The straw mushroom is named because it often grows in moist, rotting rice straw, and is mostly produced in Guangdong and Guangxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Taiwan, China. It is plump, thick-fleshed, short-stemmed, and smooth, with an extremely fine taste, hence its names “orchid mushroom” and “delicious volva mushroom.”

Red Mushroom

The red mushroom has a unique flavor, fragrant and refreshing. Its taste is incomparably fresh and sweet compared with any other mushroom; it also contains various components such as many amino acids essential to humans. It has effects in treating tumors, especially lung tumors, soreness and aching of the waist and legs, numbness of the hands and feet, discomfort of the muscles and bones, and spasms of the limbs, as well as enriching the blood, nourishing yin, cooling and detoxifying, and treating diseases such as anemia, edema, malnutrition, and excessive bleeding in postpartum women. It also has effects such as increasing the body's immunity and fighting cancer; eaten regularly, it can make the skin smooth and fine, keep one full of energy, and prolong life.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, before every Mid-Autumn Festival, the local government would send people to escort a batch of red mushrooms to the capital as tribute, and thus it became famous far and wide.