Mushrooms and Fungi are so interesting, all the different colours, shapes and sizes, one never knows either whether they are safe to eat or madly poisonous.

I really don’t know the difference between mushrooms, toadstools or fungus so I would be a dangerous person to go out and try to gather mushrooms in the wild. I am fascinated by their different colours, growth patterns and the places where they are found.

As a child growing up in Kwazulu Natal we used to get huge field mushrooms, as big as a dinner plate, just after the rains, we called them by their Zulu name i’Khowe, they were delicious in taste and very meaty in texture. You had to pick them very quickly as a day or two later they would be crawling with maggots.

On a recent trip to Kruger National Park and the nearby Blyde River canyon, I noticed some very interesting varieties of either mushrooms, toadstools or fungi that piqued my interest, so much so that I want to find out more about these wonderful works of nature, at present I am unable to identify or name any of these pictures.

I know that there are people who go mushroom gathering (foraging) in the Tokai forest in Cape Town, on a regular basis, coming straight home and making themselves a tasty brunch with their newfound treasures. Perhaps I will be able to convince one or two of them to take me with them on their next trip and I promise not to reveal their secret stash location.

Mushrooms are very low in fat, have no cholesterol and really good to add to your diet.

6 Comments

  1. Merle Keeve
    28 October 2013

    I have found a mushroom (very large) that looks like the mushroom we called ‘khowe’ in Natal. Do you know it and do you have pictures of it so that we can identify what we have.
    Thanks
    Merle

    Reply
  2. Anne Peachey
    30 November 2013

    I find ikhowe mushrooms in my garden all the time. Today I found another kind and want to know if they are edible. Would you know how to check? They are tiny, but there are hundreds of them.

    Reply
    • admin
      30 November 2013

      Hi Anne

      Thanks for stopping by. Unfortunately I don’t know too much about mushrooms and which ones are edible but I can suggest you have a look at a Facebook group called the mushroom identification forum and perhaps if you took a photo of the mushrooms you could send it to them and I am sure someone there will be able to identify them for you. Here is the link https://www.facebook.com/groups/117808248330980/

      Good Luck
      Regards
      Admin

      Reply
  3. Geoff
    22 January 2015

    Hmm! very nice pictures of mushrooms.
    My favorite photographic subjects are mushrooms. While still living in the Cape it was easy to find beautiful examples of a huge variety of shrooms but, now in Gauteng, not much.
    Like you I don’t know how to identify any of them but they are very photogenic.

    Reply
    • admin
      19 April 2023

      Hi Geoff

      Thank you for visiting our site 🙂

      We also admire these photogenic fungi and yes they are hard to find, mostly in forests and woodland.

      Reply

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