Blewits

Welcome back to Mushroom Monday, your weekly look at some of PEI’s fascinating fungi. Today’s species is both beautiful and delicious. Meet the Blewit (Collybia nuda).

‘Blewit’ is an odd-sounding name, and the most common explanation is that it’s a shortened form of ‘Blue Hat’, referring to the colour of younger specimens. That’s plausible, though I’m not entirely convinced: these mushrooms are more purple or lilac than blue (main photo). While distinctive, that colour is not a reliable indicator on its own. Blewits can be cream coloured or tan, and ones that are vibrant when young usually lose that colour as they age (inset photo).

While cap colour is helpful, if not definitive, it’s the cap size and texture that catch my eye. A mature Blewit can be 15 centimetres (six inches) wide, with a translucent look to the outer portion that you can see in both of these photos. When wet, the cap feels slightly tacky.

Under the cap, Blewits have closely-spaced gills with a small notch before they attach to the stem. The stem is the same colour as the gills, and smooth, stocky, and untapered.

Blewits are smooth all over, which helps differentiate them from the somewhat-similar but inedible purple Cortinarius species (aka Corts or Webcaps). Corts get their name from their cortina: a web-like covering over the gills of young specimens. As a Cort matures and its cap expands, the cortina breaks away and webby remnants can sometimes still be seen at the edge of the cap or along the stem. If in doubt, do a spore print: Blewits have pale, buff, or pinkish spores, while those of Corts are rusty brown.

As I mentioned with last week’s Sweetbread Mushrooms, smell is often a helpful clue in fungus identification. Blewits have been described as smelling fruity, floral, or citrussy. I made of point of sniffing a lot of Blewits this fall, including various stages of growth, and they all just smelled mushroomy to me.

While I don’t find Blewits have a floral scent, I do find they have a delicate taste with a slightly floral finish; they are in the top five of the 26 species of wild mushrooms I’ve tried to date. I prefer to dry-fry them (in a pan with no oil) until the water has evaporated and then add some butter to brown them. (Unfortunately, they don’t keep their purple colour when cooked). Wild mushrooms should always be well-cooked before eating and, as with any new-to-you food, try a small bit at first to be sure they agree with you.

Blewits are decomposers that grow directly from the ground, often in small groups with their caps ‘smooshed’ together as shown here. Blewits can be found in grassy habitats and urban areas as well as woodlands, and now is the perfect time to look for them on PEI Untamed!