By Maureen Fellinger

Chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sp.) is an excellent fungus for beginner foragers, as it is easy to identify as well as fairly easy to spot in the woods due to its vibrant color. Chicken of the woods is a bright orange polypore mushroom, meaning that it has pores or tubes on the underside, as opposed to having gills. This fungus will grow in brackets on living or decaying trees— it often causes heart rot in living trees. Heart rot is a fungal disease that causes the center of the tree to decay.

The genus name Laetiporus means “bright pores”, and there are currently seven different species within the genus. If you are an Ohio reader, there is an interesting connection to one of the species, Laetiporus cincinnatus. The earliest epithet at this genus level was coined by Andrew Price Morgan, a Miami Valley botanist who taught near Cincinnati, OH. Morgan was a mentor to renowned mycologist Curtis Gates Lloyd. and some of their correspondences are stored at the Lloyd Library & Museum in Cincinnati.

Chicken of the woods tastes like, as you probably can assume, chicken! It is high in protein, but can cause gastrointestinal distress for some people. Like any wild mushroom, make sure you cook it properly, and if you are trying it for the first time, only eat a small portion to ensure that your stomach can handle it. We have gotten a good amount of rain this week here in the Miami Valley area, so I will be heading into the forest this weekend and I will be keeping an eye out for this beautiful, orange specimen. Hopefully if I find any, they will be closer to the ground and within reach compared to the last time I spotted some in 2021…

*The writer is Agraria’s Education Administrator.

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