Winter mushrooms

The sudden temperature drop and several rainy days brought the most common “winter mushrooms”, Pleurotus ostreatus and Flammulina filiformis.

Image credit: Feng Cai, 2020

Flammulina velutipes sensu lato, or Enokitake or 金針菇, a widely known edible mushroom, has been recently divided into two phylogenetic species. The molecular evolutionary analysis of Wang et al. 2018 showed that the European isolates formed a monophyletic group of F. velutipes s.s., while all wild and cultivated Asian strains belonged to the cryptic sister species – F. filiformis.