Shingled hedgehog

How to recognise it: shingled hedgehog

1. 1

   Large brown cap with coarse, raised scales like roof tiles

2. 2

   Spines instead of gills under the cap

3. 3

   Grows under spruces (Sarcodon squamosus – under pines)

4. 4

   Spicy smell

Description

Cap

Large, 6–25 cm, thick-fleshed, depressed with age; brown with a reddish tinge, covered with coarse, dark brown, raised scales arranged concentrically (like roof tiles).

Spines

Instead of gills, crowded, brittle spines, whitish, then grey to brown, decurrent down the stem.

Stem

3–8 cm × 1–3 cm, cylindrical to club-shaped, solid, whitish when young, then grey-brown, velvety.

Flesh

Elastic, dry, whitish to grey-brown, brownish at the stem base.

Smell and taste

Smell spicy, taste pleasant (bitterish in older specimens). Spore print grey-brown.

Where and when it grows

On the ground in coniferous forests, above all in mountain spruce forests, on acidic and sandy soils; singly or in groups. Locally common, especially in the mountains; on the Polish Red List in category V (vulnerable).

Most often with: spruce, pine

Where are conditions good today?

Look-alikes: what it can be mistaken for

• 

  Hedgehog mushroom Edible low risk

  Also has spines, but it is pale (cream to orange), with a smooth cap without scales; both species are edible.

In the kitchen

Pick only young specimens; rarely preserved, because it darkens; do not eat raw. Rarely maggoty.

Protection and sale

• Species protection: the species is not protected. Until 2014 the whole genus Sarcodon was protected; S. imbricatus is now not protected. Rare species remain strictly protected: S. glaucopus, S. scabrosus, S. joeides and S. underwoodii – they have finer scales and often a bluish/greenish stem base or bitter flesh; do not pick such specimens.
• Sale: the species is not on the list of mushrooms approved for sale.

Where you may pick mushrooms →