Gypsy Mushroom

The gypsy mushroom (Cortinarius caperatus, long known as Rozites caperatus) is one of the choice foraged edibles of the northern woods — a handsome, meaty autumn mushroom that combines the safety of a well-marked field species with the depth of a true wild fungus. Its cap is the giveaway: a broad, egg-shaped dome ripening to a warm tawny ochre or date-brown, distinctly wrinkled or corrugated toward the rim (the Latin caperatus means "wrinkled") and, when young, dusted over the crown with a fine silvery-lilac bloom like hoar-frost. Unlike most of its relatives in the huge genus Cortinarius — a tribe that includes some of the deadliest fungi known — the gypsy is easy to name with confidence, for it carries both the cobwebby veil (cortina) that gives the genus its name and, more tellingly, a persistent membranous ring high on its pale stalk, and it drops a rusty-brown spore print. Firm, nutty and mild, with none of the sliminess of many woodland caps, it is a prized table mushroom across Scandinavia, the Baltic, Central Europe and the cooler forests of North America — excellent fried, and one of the few Cortinarius any careful forager is encouraged to eat.