Agrocybe aegerita

Scientific classification

 Kingdom: Fungi

 Phylum:  Basidiomycota

 Class: Agaricomycetes

 Order: Agaricales

 Family: Strophariaceae

 Genus: Agrocybe

General information

Common name(s): Chestnut mushroom; Yanagi-matsutake (Japanese); Pioppino (Italian); South Poplar Mushroom; Zhuzhuang-Tiantougu (Chinese).
     
Edibility: Edible

Distribution: Not known to occur in North America outside of the southeastern states of Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia. Common across southern Europe and in similar climatic zones of the Far East.

Description

Agrocybe aegerita can grow up to 12 inches in diameter. Its cap is convex to hemispheric, expanding to plane when mature, with colours varying from yellowish gray to grayish brown to tan to dingy brown, becoming darker towards the center. It has gray gills at first, which become chocolate brown with spore maturity. It's a very smooth mushroom with a white stem,  adorned with a well developed membranous ring, usually colored brown from spore fall.

Natural Habitat

This saprophytic mushroom grows often in clusters on stumps in the southeastern United States and southern Europe. It prefers hardwoods, especially cottonwoods, willows, poplars, maples, box elders, and  tea-oil trees (in China).

Use in medicine:

• anti-cancer properties;
• hypoglycemic properties;
• antioxidant compounds;
• compounds with inhibitory properties against cyclooxygenase (enzime).

Preparation and Cooking: Finely chopped and stir fried, cooked in a white sauce and poured onto a fish or chicken, or baked in a stuffing, this species imparts a mild but satisfying pork-like flavour.

Sources

 - www.medicalmushrooms.net

 - Stamets, Paul (2000). Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms.