One commonly reported truffle, an Ascomycete Barssia oregonensis turned up in several collections. It is fairly frequent in our area, being reported both in July and January under both mature Douglas fir and young regrowth. I find this truffle tasty and often drop ripe units into cognac before making them into a sauce.
Rhizopogon genus tubers turned up often as well. These 'pogies are related to Suillus and provide a lot of chuck for the local squirrels and rodents. Jerry Behling from Darby turned up some R. vinicolor, and he also picked a funny specimen of what I'd been calling vinicolor, which Dr. Trappe has since identified as subcaerulescens. I've found Rhizopogon rubescens in just about every county in western Montana.
Behling also turned up the rare Hydnotrya michaelis, an inedible wood truffle, and other members of this genus have turned up as well, some of which are listed as rare. Hydnotrya cerebriformis has been found near Glacier National Park, in moss, near black currants, maple, and huckleberry. The collecting data reads, "Milk chocolate brown exterior, convoluted, no differentiated tissue or membrane outside. Interior loosely folded, with a fine hyphal fuzz on some interior surfaces, flesh dark and brittle throughout. Pleasant musky, fungal odor".
Both Leucopheps magnata, a chalky white fungus with a crumbly texture, and L. spinispora have turned up in western Montana truffle collections
The strong smelling Gautieria monticola is commonly found in arcs inside the dripline of mature Douglas fir, from 3000 to over 7000 feet. Other members of this genus turn up less frequently. The strong smell of rotting onions has earned them the moniker of "skunk truffle" although squirrels are the ones eating them. Mixed with enough butter in the blender, a palatable truffle butter can be made with these powerful fungi.
Trufflers Dave Janssen and George Ladayne found some most interesting items in their prowls, whereabouts unknown. These included Tuber sphaerosporum, a first time find for Montana, and the brown, fruity smelling Alpova diplophloeus from under quaking aspen.
A less desirable sort of truffle, the genus Hysterangium, seems to turn up under dead or dying lodgepole pine, associated with decomposed logs, and submerged in the duff. These relatively common fungi seem to attract small mammals somehow, despite their lack of a strong smell (I find them by locating the divots the critters dig to find them) Their gray and gelatinous context remind me of immature Phallus sp. I've never heard of a human sampling this chewy and gelatinous group, but H. sublilacinus shows up in abundant fruitings, and the small mammals do find 'em.
The following is from Dan Wheeler:The Melanogaster tuberiformis shown here was found by Brandon Osman in June of 1995 in a rare riparian old growth experiencing regrowth through a break in the canopy. They were rather abundant, and smelled lovely when he brought them in. I froze them and after the ID by Dr. Trappe, thawed them out and made truffle butter in the blender. It was very strong tasting and delicious over pasta.
Hysterangiums, are gelatinous/cartilaginous, have rather nice, aromatic aromas, (and are edible, BTW) becoming rather soft and aromatic in age: similar to overripe olives IMO.I have eaten these on two occasions. On the first, immature specimens were pureed in a food processor with butter, then used as a topping over baked potato. The second time I found more mature specimens that tasted nearly the same as very ripe olives, which I sampled in honey over french bread. This sample was not as tastey as the first, but it doesn't take much to figure out why. Why would anyone in their right mind blend olives and honey? I should have tried them blended into the filling for devilled eggs instead, or peeled and added to salad dressings or salads.
The Geopora cooperi shown here was found in a lawn inside the city limits. Many of the houses in the late 1800s and early 1900s were simply erected on the native prairie-forest ecosystem, without the attendant earth-moving we see today. The native gray squirrels eat these things like there's no tomorrow, but the introduced red squirrels in town didn't recognize it as food. I noted an experimental squirrel-bite taken out of one only after having monitored their growth for several days. These fuzzy truffles will get fist-sized and larger, I hear. Most I see are a third this size.
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