The oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) is a soft-fleshed, wood-rotting fungus that grows in tiered, shelving clusters straight off dead logs and stumps, its broad caps fanned out like a stack of oyster shells — the resemblance that gives it its name, not its taste. Pearl-grey in the wild, it is bred and sold in a paintbox of golden, pink and blue strains. Mild, delicate and faintly sweet with a subtle anise-and-seafood thread, it cooks to a prized velvety, faintly chewy texture in sautes, stir-fries and as a shredded plant-based meat (pulled oyster mushroom). One of the most cultivated mushrooms on Earth, it fruits readily on cheap straw and sawdust and is studied as a wood-decomposer for mycoremediation.