Flame Trumpet

It’s mushroom Monday, and this week we have the eye-catching, edible, and ecologically-helpful Flame Trumpet (Craterellus ignicolor).

No matter how much or how little interest you have in wild mushrooms, you’ve likely heard of Chanterelles. That common name usually applies to fungi in the genus Cantharellus, but there are other, equally edible, members of the Chanterelle family. I’ve posted about two before: Black Trumpet (Craterellus fallax) and Winter Chanterelle (aka Yellowfoot, Craterellus subperforatus); Flame Trumpet is yet another member of this group.

Flame Trumpet is well-named, with its fiery, yellow-orange cap that develops a central hole leading to a mostly hollow stem, giving it a trumpet-like shape. Like its relatives, Flame Trumpet has folds called ‘false gills’ under its cap; unlike true gills, false gills are part of the cap and can’t be easily separated from it. Those false gills start out yellow, as seen here, but become pinkish-tan with age.

These are small mushrooms, rarely more than a couple of inches (5-6 cm) tall or wide. They hang out under hardwoods including Beech and Birch, where their bright colour stands out against a background of brown leaves and green moss. Like the common Chanterelles that I find growing under Spruce, Flame Trumpets can often be spotted from quite a distance through the forest understorey.

These are good beginner-level edible mushrooms, because there’s not much that they could be mistaken for. Winter Chanterelles are somewhat similar but found under conifers rather than hardwoods (and they’re also edible). Waxcaps (Hygrocybe spp.) can be bright yellow, but they have true gills and aren’t trumpet-shaped (I’ll have more about Waxcaps in a future post).

Flame Trumpets are among our mycorrhizal fungi – they form mutually-beneficial partnerships with hardwood trees – but they can also decompose and recycle organic matter. In this way, Flame Trumpets contribute to both forest health and nutrient cycling.

If you’re out enjoying the fall colours in our hardwood forests, keep an eye out for this lovely member of PEI Untamed!