Chicken of the Woods and Eucalyptus

The air is dry, with a crisp edge, and buckeye leaves are yellow husks that rustle under foot. Our trail take us into a eucalyptus grove. Strips of fallen bark from the trees cover the ground and lean haphazard against the stripy trunks of the trees. And there, sticking out about ten feet up on one of those trunks, is what we are looking for, a pile of rounded yellow shelves: chicken of the woods. This is the first edible fungus of fall here in the East Bay.

We prod it with a stick and it turns out to be a bit too old and hard to eat, but soon we spot a clump on another tree. It is spongy and moist. Beads of liquid wet our hands. Dinner!

Chicken of the woods, also called sulfur shelf, is a parasitic fungus that feeds on living trees or fairly recently cut stumps. It takes nutrients and moisture from its host. The organism lives within the wood all year long, as a tangle of threads called mycelium. The yellow shelves we picked are the fruiting body, which grows in autumn and releases spores to reproduce. The fruiting body appears so early in the fall, often before any significant rain, because it doesn't rely on moisture directly from recent rain. As the fungus spreads through the tree, it makes the tree more brittle. The tree may eventually fall when it becomes too brittle to bend with the wind.

This species of chicken of the woods (Laetiporus gilbertsonii) grows mostly on oak and eucalyptus in our area, though I have have only seen it on eucalyptus. Eucalyptus trees are not native to California; they were brought from Australia in the 1850's by Australian settlers. In the early 1900's, unscrupulous boosters sold plots of land planted with eucalyptus (mainly a species called blue gum), promising easy money from timber from the fast-growing trees. In just a few years, millions of trees were planted. But this species makes for terrible timber. Most of the stands of eucalyptus are abandoned crops from that era; they don't reproduce well enough in most parts of California to be able to spread to new areas. These eucalyptus groves pose fire hazards, since eucalyptus is extremely flammable. And they don't support many native species. Chicken of the woods is an exception: a California native that thrives in eucalyptus.

Laetiporus gilbertsonii

Another local species of chicken of the woods (Laetiporus conifericola) grows only on conifers,  such as douglas fir.

Laetiporus conifericola

The gilbertsonii chicken of the woods tastes like chicken, meaty and rich, which is how it got its name. The conifericola chicken of the woods has some of that flavor but also has a very strong sour taste. I like it, but some people don't. People's reactions to eating chicken on the woods vary, and not just in relation to the taste: it makes some people projectile vomit! It may be that long cooking reduces that possibility. I sautee it in butter or oil for about five minutes, simmer it in wine and water for another 25 or 30 minutes, cross my fingers, and enjoy.

As chicken of the woods fungus age and get too hard and chalky for people to eat, they are often munched by potato bugs (aka pill bugs, roly-polys) or beetles. Eucalyptus have been in our ecosystem for almost 200 years now. They aren't as deeply entwined with other species as native trees are, but they are a part of our food webs, connected to fungus, people and bugs. Herons and egrets sometimes nest in them. The other day I spotted a red-breasted sapsucker feeding in one. I wonder what new relationships will develop in the next thousand or ten-thousand years.

Even as some stands of eucalyptus are removed to reduce fire danger and to make space for native vegetation, we will continue to live with this species, and with the strange, delicious fungus that attacks it.

LINKS:
Bay Area Mycological Society article about chicken of the woods
One KQED article about eucalyptus in California and another