Discussion

An unstoppable mushroom is tearing through North American forests. Fungi enthusiasts are doing damage control

Pine_Mushroom: I had a mushroom farm in Northern Michigan some years ago and we grew Golden Oysters, among other species. I think our winters are too cold for them to really establish themselves, but I was hearing reports of them 'going native' in Southern Michigan as long ago as 15 years.Like the farmer in the article, I also wondered about the apparent lack of effort in growing native species. My area has a wonderful native oyster Pleurotus populinus; exceptional in taste compared to other oysters, but I have never heard of anyone cultivating them.

abcd_f: The good news is that's edible and apparently tastes good.

voidUpdate: Same with Kudzu, and apparently that's an unstoppable plant too

comrade1234: A company grows these (and other mushrooms) in a warehouse here in Zurich to supply restaurants and grocery stores, which is probably one of the reasons these mushrooms are now found in the wild.I "hunt" (in German you use the verb "collect/gather") mushrooms in the forests around Zurich and I haven't seen these yet. They also don't appear in my Pilzfürher app specific to Switzerland. But I have heard they are here. From pictures I've seen of them in the wild I might dismiss them from a distance because I could mix them up with two common yellow mushrooms here - one poisonous.(I'm going out to search for morels this weekend)

gessha: Unstoppable until you acquire a bunch of goats.

rkomorn: But what if your goats become unstoppable?

ssm008: Apply wolves!

neomantra: 2026 was already quite interesting and now I have marked “Unstoppable Carnivorous Mushroom” on my Bingo Card.

rwmj: I don't recall if The Triffids were delicious when fried in a little butter.

Asooka: Goatherd's pie.

b00ty4breakfast: Wonder if I'll be able to add a new entry to the list of "mushrooms that supposedly grow in my region but cannot be located within 100 sq miles of my home" soon.

Akasazh: Then you have found the goat

u8080: If they became unstoppable, we'll need unstoppable humans! Wait~~

endgame: The verb I've most commonly heard for this activity in English is "forage". What's the equivalent German word?

moron4hire: I would say that it's more accurate to say that kudzu is not poisonous. I definitely would not say it tastes good. It's got that "green plant" taste that you get from just chomping on any ol' leaf you might find. I mean, if you're poor and starving you could maaaaaybe survive on Kudzu, but it will be rough, it's not very calorie dense, even for a leafy green. Goats won't even eat it unless there is literally nothing else to eat. This whole, "oh you, can eat kudzu!" thing is just crunchy-mom Instagram influencer bullshit.

zikduruqe: > I'm going out to search for morels this weekendI don't have any addictions in my life, but one. That's when morel season is in swing, I am in full hunt mode.

eps: A friend of mine went to a local mushroom picking course and among things they mentioned that morels are difficult to cook from fresh, because of the gastro problems. Apparently, the advice was to dry them before using in recipes.What's up with that?

voidUpdate: You might want to tell the japanese and vietnamese that it doesn't taste good then, they seem to have been using it as food for quite a while now

genthree: "Mushroom hunting" is a fairly common phrase in English, too. It appears to have the top-level title for the page about that activity, on Wikipedia, even (mushroom foraging, mushroom picking, and mushrooming are all given as alternative terms)Plus it's the title of a song on the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, so it has that going for it.

HelloMcFly: Kudzu's threat has been long overstated. It thrives especially near forest edgelands which are always visible on highways, so concern of prevalence was partially based on individual sampling error. In reality, its presence in southern forests is higher than desired but still not disastrous (~0.1% of southern forestland), which is a fraction of worse invasives: Japanese honeysuckle (4.4%) and Asian privet (1.4%).