Collecting mushrooms: lines and morels - harm and benefit

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

In early spring, when the last snow melts and everything around comes to life, the first mushrooms appear in our forests - lines and morels.

Wrinkled, with a wonderful aroma, these mushrooms have long been revered in Russia. There are legends according to which such mushrooms help to preserve youth. In addition, this spring “snowdrop” is also mentioned in birch bark letters, which archaeologists found under the Novgorod Cathedral of St. Panteleimon. They described the fact that morels and lines were used to treat diseases such as myopia, age-related farsightedness and other eye diseases (a special tincture was prepared from the mentioned mushrooms).

In our time, stitching mushrooms also ended up in the laboratory. With the help of numerous studies, the medicinal properties of these mushrooms have been confirmed. They found a substance that not only strengthens the eye muscles, but also activelyhelps maintain the transparency of the eye lens.

How to find them in the forest? Morels are rather large mushrooms with clearly separated stem and cap. The latter is folded and has a brown color of various shades. Spores are located on the entire surface of the cap. There are two types of morels - edible and conical. They can be distinguished by the shape of the cap: the first has a rounded gray-brown cap with deep cells. The cap of the conical morel is elongated, resembling a cap cut off from above, the base of which has an edge adhering to the stem. In addition, its hat is much darker than that of the edible morel.

Stitch mushrooms are close relatives of morels. You can also tell them apart by their hats. It has an irregular shape and consists of many random folds.

In appearance, it resembles the brain. The color of the cap is dark brown. The stem is thicker than that of the morel. In addition, this species is considered conditionally edible. It is much more difficult to convey in words what morel mushrooms and lines look like. Photos are more informative, with their help it will be much easier to recognize mushrooms in the forest. Now is the time to find out where to find them.

Stitch mushrooms and morels love to settle in places where there was a fire before. That is why very often they can be found in large quantities in places where forest fires have occurred. Morels appear first. Most often, mushrooms appear on open andwarm places - in forest glades. It must be remembered that one by one they do not grow. If a morel is visible in the clearing, then there are probably more nearby, you just need to look carefully among last year's dried grass.

For inexperienced mushroom pickers, one of these types of mushrooms has in its body such a toxin as gyromitrin. In small doses, it is safe, but in large doses it has the same effect as pale grebe. This toxin does not lose its properties even when boiled and washed. A mushroom containing this substance is a line. Morel is a mushroom that does not contain such a poison, so it is safer. But, despite this, they cannot be eaten raw, appropriate processing is necessary. And skillfully prepared dishes - from morels, from lines - are quite appetizing and tasty.