2026 Foraging Guide to Wild Mushrooms and Plants! Morels and Ramps.

This video is a guide to edible mushrooms and plants that grow throughout the year. I'm going to start off talking about the spring wild edibles, then I'll work my way through each season. These honeycomb shaped mushrooms are some of the most sought after spring fungi. They're known as morel mushrooms and they grow on the forest floor when the soil temperature is between 45 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Morels tend to have a relationship with certain hardwood trees, specifically decaying elm, ash, apple, and tulip poplar trees in the southeastern region. They also like to grow on south-facing slopes and disturb sites like burn areas and logging sites. To ID these mushrooms, you want to make sure the cap and stem are hollow. And on most morel species, the cap will be attached to the stem. There is one caveat, which is the half-free morel, where the bottom of the cap is not attached to the stem. But in every other morel, the cap will be attached. Morels are a choice edible mushroom that is delicious sauteed. These mushrooms should be never eaten raw, partially cooked, or with alcohol. In the springtime, I really like to combine ramps with morels. It is a delicious combination. Ramps are a pungent, spring ephemeral plant, meaning these plants come out in the mid-spring to take advantage of the forest with no leaves so they can get the full sunlight. And then as soon as the leaves fill out, they start to disappear. The word Chicago comes from a Native American name for ramps that roughly translates to stinky onion. Ramps have relatively smooth, waxy leaves that are light green in color. The leaves have an onion-like bulb that stays underground all year long. Ramps form mostly in pairs with two leaves and occasionally three. These plants often form in large, massive patches if it's a healthy population. These plants are at risk of being over-harvested over time if the proper techniques aren't being used. When harvesting these plants in the mid to late spring, I like to harvest one leaf from each plant and leave most of the colony alone. And then I'll come back to these ramp edges in mid-summer to spread the seeds and expand the population. Ramps can be eaten raw, but I find they're best when they're cooked just slightly. Ramps can be pickled, cooked with eggs, pasta, and even pizza. But if you do eat them, you will be smelling for days. In damp regions, they can form close to a toxic plant lookalike, false hellebore. False hellebore has a similar structure to cabbage. False hellebore leaves have ridges called parallel veins that are much more distinguished than the ramp's little wrinkles. You also want to distinguish ramps from other poisonous lookalikes like lily of the valley. These jiggly, ear-shaped mushrooms were traditionally used in Asian cuisine. These are wood ear mushrooms. These gelatinous mushrooms have a ton of copper and B vitamin. One serving of wood ear contains 30% of your copper intake for the day. Wood ear grows on dead branches, limbs, and twigs. It's best to look for wood ear after a rain because when it's been very dry for a while, wood ear mushrooms will tend to shrivel up and they'll look like raisins and you can barely see them. Wood ears are excellent for soups and stir fries, especially if you add them in with other wild edibles like garlics and ramps. Now, amber jelly roll is a more formless and translucent cousin of wood ear. This jelly fungi looks very similar, however, it forms in denser clusters than wood ear and has less of an ear shape and more wrinkles. Amber jelly roll can be used in a very similar way to wood ear, so you're going to want to use it in soups, stir fries. Usually sauteing these mushrooms doesn't work too well on their own because they'll just like shrivel up. And here's a comparison of the mushrooms side by side so you can really tell the difference. Chickweed is one of the first edible greens in the forest during the springtime. These plants form in dense mats on the forest floor and they spread out horizontally. Chickweed has teardrop shaped leaves that form in opposite pairs. Chickweed has fine little hairs that form on the sides of the stem. Chickweed also has stalks that connect the leaf to the main stem called petioles. You'll want to distinguish chickweed from its poisonous lookalike, Scarlet Pimpernel, which I cover in another video on chickweed. Chickweed is a delicious salad green that has a similar crunchy taste to sprouts. This is a very easy plant to collect in abundance because it forms in such dense clusters. It's not uncommon to find a whole forest floor covered with chickweed. This plant is also very nutrient dense with a lot of vitamin C, calcium, and iron. In addition to being a salad green, it makes an amazing pesto. These distinctive polypore mushrooms smell strongly of watermelon and cucumbers. They're known by many common names including Dryad Saddle and Pheasant Back. Dryad Saddle grows as a shelf mushroom on hardwood trees, stumps, and logs. This mushroom is very easy to identify with its dark scales contrasting with its cream color. It also has very unique large honeycomb shaped pores on the underside. This mushroom fruits primarily in the mid-spring to early summer, but you can also find it fruiting at other times of the year as well. This mushroom also has a long stalk to hold up the mushroom because it can get very heavy as it gets large. There are no lookalikes to this mushroom and no other mushroom smells quite like it. It is best to collect the new tender growth of this mushroom because as the mushroom matures it gets tough and chewy, and if you find a really big Dryad Saddle you can cut out the outer ring because the outer ring will be the new growth and the new growth is more soft and tender than the inner growth. While the tougher parts of this mushroom might not be great to eat, they serve as a good mushroom broth base. This star shaped plant is one of my favorite tubers and it has a refreshing and crunchy taste. These plants are known as Indian Cucumber because of how similar the bulb tastes to regular cucumbers. Indian Cucumber has a tall stem that has 5-12 leaves that form a star pattern. As it matures, the plant will form a second layer of 3 leaves above the first layer, and even later into the season it will form flowers above that and some berries. The rhizomes can be dug up and are edible raw or cooked. They're great as a trail nibble or added to a salad. So Indian Cucumber largely reproduces underground by creating secondary rhizomes. So continually harvesting from the same colonies over and over again will probably deplete these populations. So it's better to transplant these plants and start your own colony. You'll also want to distinguish Indian Cucumber from May Apple because May Apple also grows in similar areas and has a star shaped leaf pattern. May Apple's leaves, stem, and root are toxic. This vibrant orange shell mushroom is common in the summer months. It's known as Chicken of the Woods because of how similar it tastes to chicken. I often find these polypores growing as early as May in western North Carolina. This mushroom is one of the foolproof four and is one of the easiest mushrooms to identify in the forest. The standard Chicken of the Woods is bright orange on the top and has small yellow pores on the underside. Chicken of the Woods is a thick shelf mushroom with overlapping brackets. The common variety grows on hardwood trees, especially oak trees. White Pored Sulphur Shelf Mushroom is another variant of Chicken of the Woods. The underside of this mushroom is white in color rather than yellow. And the mushroom is a little bit more peach colored than orange and tends to grow at the base of trees. All varieties of Chicken of the Woods taste delicious. They can be a little dry, so make sure to cook them with a lot of butter or sauce. I really like to cook them in barbecue sauce. They really soak up and absorb all the flavor. This arching plant is biblical for its starchy rhizome that has little seals that resemble the biblical Seal of Solomon. This plant often grows alongside another arching plant called False Solomon's Seal, whereas False Solomon's Seal has flowers that extrude out the ends of the arching plant and no flowers underneath. However, the True Solomon's Seal has dangling flowers called plumes. The young shoots of True Solomon's Seal can be eaten like asparagus. And the potato-like rhizome can be eaten raw or it can be boiled for about 20 minutes. As an herb, Solomon's Seal is great for helping weak joints and muscles. It's also great for lung health and digestion. The rhizome can be roasted and used for tea, and it's great when you've been overworked and overstressed. When you're digging up the plant, you want to go from the backside and carefully dig the rhizome out. This is wood nettle, a cousin of stinging nettle. Wood nettle can grow in the shady, fertile soils deep in the forest. While stinging nettle comes out early in the spring, wood nettle waits a little bit and comes out a month or two after. Wood nettle can be distinguished from stinging nettle with its alternate leaves. Stinging nettle has opposite-paired leaves. Wood nettle's petioles, the stems that come off the main stem, are often longer, and wood nettle is often more top-heavy, with most of its leaves clustered towards the top of the plant, than stinging nettle. Wood nettle has teardrop-shaped leaves with jagged edges. Despite their differences, both stinging nettle and wood nettle both have a strong sting, and some say that wood nettle has a slightly stronger sting. As wood nettle matures, it can become pretty tall, from two to four feet. You can use gloves, knives, or scissors to harvest this plant to avoid getting stung. If you do happen to get stung, it's not that painful, it just creates little welts on your skin, but if you get stung over and over again, or you roll in it, it is going to really hurt. I like to harvest the plants by cutting the upper part of the plant off, and leave about two to three leaves below that, so the plant will be able to regenerate and keep living. The stinging hairs are deactivated by heat, so it's recommended that you saute, steam, or dehydrate these plants before eating them. If you want to practice some bushcraft, the inner strands of wood nettle can be made into a really strong cordage that is up to 50 times stronger than cotton. This small, clover-like plant is the sweetheart of the forest. This plant is known as wood sorrel, and it has delicious tart and sour taste. This is not a substantial food, but it's more of a trail nibble to enjoy along your hike. It's best not to consume a ton of these plants anyway, because they're very high in oxalic acid. Oxalic acid can result in kidney stones if eaten too much, but it's also produced by our body, and oxalic acid is also very high in normal foods like bananas, chocolate, and nuts. If you're consuming a lot of these plants, try combining them with yogurt or raw milk, because the calcium will bind with the oxalic acid, and also the probiotics will help break down the oxalic acid in the stomach. There are a ton of different coral mushrooms in the forest, and they range wildly in color. Some are edible, some are inedible, and others are poisonous. I want to focus on my favorite edible coral, the crown-tipped coral. This coral mushroom is distinguished by its crowns, or fingers, that appear on top of each stem. This coral mushroom differs from others because it grows only from decaying wood and not from the ground. The crown-tipped corals have a much looser structure than some of the other lookalikes like remeria. They have a white to off-white cream color, and they're easy to find in abundance. They're also pretty brittle and fragile. These mushrooms can be sauteed, but they cook down pretty quickly, so I like to add them to soups, and they'll retain their structure better, and they also complement the texture of a ramen really well. Red clover is a common flower that you can find growing in fields and lawns. Red clover is easily identified by its cluster of tubular red flowers. The flowers are accompanied by one or two sets of clover leaves. These clover leaves contain white arrow-like markings called chevron, and the red clover stems are hairy and hollow. Flowers, leaves, and roots of this plant are all edible. Flowers are my personal favorite, and have a slight sweet taste to them. These plants have a very high percentage of protein for a plant. The red clover are preferable over white clover. There is some research that says that white clover might be toxic, but just in the southern states. I like to use the flowers in particular to top salads, pizza, and all sorts of dishes. Red clover tea is a great way to use the plant as well. Red clover is high in vitamins and minerals like calcium, magnesium, vitamin C, and potassium. Red clover has a ton of health benefits. It helps the lymphatic system, promotes healthy skin, and endocrine function, to name a few. This vibrant UFO sheep mushroom is revered for its medicinal properties. It's known as reishi mushroom, and the specific type that I find on the east coast is Ganoderma sugei, hemlock reishi, which as the name suggests, grows almost exclusively on hemlock trees. In western North Carolina, the nodes of these mushrooms start developing as soon as late April to early May, and these nodes will form like white little puffballs on the sides of hemlock trees and stumps. As the mushroom matures, it will start to form red little antlers, and it will fan out into these kidney-shaped shells. The adolescent reishi will have layers of different colors, with red towards the base, then yellow and orange, and the outer rim of this mushroom will be a doughy white color. This outer rim of white new growth is actually the only part of reishi that is edible. You can trim it off and cook it up with butter, and it's quite tasty. By the summer, reishi will be mature, and it will be one solid color, usually a darker red color. Reishi has this distinctive waxy sheen that covers the top of the mushroom. The underside of reishi will be white with tons of microscopic pores. This mushroom is a polypore, so it won't have any gills or anything like that. The key to finding reishi is locating hemlock groves. Now hemlock trees are evergreen trees with flat needles. On the underside of hemlock needles, you'll find two silver stripes. So if you've found reishi in a particular hemlock forest before, chances are you'll find it in that forest again the next year. Reishi forms on mostly dying and dead hemlocks, including stumps and logs that are covered in moss. So while the new growth of reishi is edible, it's largely a medicinal plant, and what are some of its health benefits? The mushroom is anti-inflammatory, it helps with autoimmune disorders, it is also great for alleviating fatigue, elevating mood, and calming the nervous system. Reishi extracts also protect against air pollutants like car exhaust. Reishi has been shown to block car exhaust molecules from entering into our body's cells. The air pollutants will stay on the outside of the cell, but they can't get in. Reishi is one of my favorite general herbs, and I take it almost every day now. I also have an extract of reishi, chaga, and lion's mane that's available on my Etsy shop. Lobster mushroom is a fungus that develops into this red lobster tail. Lobster mushroom isn't technically a mushroom, it's a parasitic fungus that transforms russula and milk cap mushrooms into this meaty lobster shape. The lobster mushrooms have a seafood smell and taste similar to that of crab or lobster. I tend to find them growing from mid-July to September, and they're easy to spot in the forest with a reddish-orange color. They're often covered in dirt because of their concave structure that allows soil to accumulate in the center. This makes cleaning lobster mushroom very tedious. However, the reward is some of the best seafood you'll find on the forest floor. The mushrooms are best cooked in butter and are a great substitute for traditional seafood recipes. I really enjoy making lobster rolls and lobster mac and cheese with them. There are no lookalikes of lobsters, but the mushrooms are best consumed when they're fresh, and I discard any lobster mushrooms that are old or moldy. Beefsteak fungus is a unique shelf mushroom that looks similar to raw meat. This mushroom grows mostly on oak and chestnut trees, and at its early stages it'll look like a pink tongue coming out of the tree. As it matures, it'll fan out into this kidney shape and turn a deep red color. I usually find this mushroom in July, August, and September. This mushroom has an acidic, citrus-like taste, and the texture is similar to meat. When you cut into this and look at the inner flesh of the mushroom, it even looks like raw meat. This mushroom is one of the few you can eat raw, but I prefer it cooked. Old Man of the Woods is a dark edible bolete that is easy to identify. These mushrooms are a grayish-black color with dark scales. These caps have a spongy texture and have a gray, porous underside. They have a woody stem with shaggy, dark scales. These are a polarizing edible mushroom. Some people love them, and others hate them. They have a mushy, melt-in-your-mouth texture that I would describe as similar to a fudgy brownie. These flowers with the frosted tops are known as mountain mint. These plants have square stems and are in the mint family. They are easily identified by their silver leaves towards the top of the plant. This is an edible plant that can be used as a minty seasoning. It is also used herbally as a tea and as an insect repellent. The flower buds and the leaves of this plant are edible. Stronger teas of this plant are good for treating wounds and for tooth and gum health. Lion's Mane is a popular edible and medicinal mushroom that grows in the spring and fall. I tend to find this mushroom growing on hardwood trees in October. I sometimes find these mushrooms growing even into the winter in some of the warmer regions of the US. These white spiny mushrooms will grow on the sides of trees like American Beech. In the early stages of growth, Lion's Mane can resemble a marshmallow growing on the sides of a tree, but as it matures, the spines will begin to develop and become longer and more distinctive. When it is fully grown, the spines will look like icicles dripping down from the mushroom. There are three types of Parisium in North Carolina. The standard Lion's Mane, Bear's Tooth Mushroom which spines are a little bit more fragmented, and Combs Tooth Mushroom which has spines going every direction sort of like a snowflake. Lion's Mane is a highly sought after choice edible mushroom. These mushrooms have a texture similar to crab cakes and are very porous and absorb the flavor they're cooked in. Lion's Mane is also known for its health benefits. This mushroom has been shown to boost brain function and mental focus. It also contains nerve growth factors that can help repair neural networks and myelin sheaths in the brain. Lion's Mane is anti-inflammatory in the brain and might help with alleviating depression and anxiety. Goldenrod is a hard bringer of autumn and is unfairly blamed for seasonal allergies. Goldenrod leaves and flowers are edible and medicinal. The leaves can be cooked like spinach or added to soups or salads. And despite what you've heard, these bright yellow flowers are actually good for seasonal allergies. Their antihistamine effects can dial back the headaches and sinus congestion of allergy season. Goldenrod is also anti-inflammatory and can help with urinary tract infections and kidney health. Turkey Tails are a polypore that comes in a variety of different colors. These mushrooms are too hard to eat but are some of the best mushrooms for boosting your immune system. These multicolored polypores grow on hardwood trees with new growth, fruiting in the late summer. But you can often find these mushrooms at varying stages of health all year round. There are a lot of similar polypores to turkey tails, but turkey tails can be identified by the following. Number one, the underside will have a white surface of very small pores. Number two, the top of the mushroom will have concentric bands of color. Number three, the top of the mushroom will be velvety and have some little fine hairs. Number four, the mushroom will be thin and flexible without breaking. After you have identified turkey tail, you can steep it in tea or make an alcoholic tincture. These mushrooms improve the immune system by boosting killer T cells and they can also help balance gut bacteria and are high in antioxidants. These mushrooms form giant fairy rings around trees. They are known as honey mushrooms for their golden brown color. And they appear in the late summer in the southern regions. In the northern climates, they'll emerge in the fall. These mushrooms are a parasite that breaks down the roots of trees and you often find them growing around the base of hardwoods. This is a great mushroom to collect in bulk because it's so prolific during its season. I can easily walk out of the forest with five to ten pounds of honey mushrooms when they're in season. Now this can be a tricky mushroom to identify, but here are some tips. You want to look for yellow to brown caps with little hairs and scales on the top. They have white gills on the underside and it also has a ring around the stem because it's a leftover from the partial veil it has when it's just developing. These mushrooms grow in large clusters, often encircling a tree. If you take a spore print, they'll have white spores. One caveat, there's also another species called ringless honey mushroom which grows in the grass and doesn't contain that ring, so that can be a little confusing. The taste and texture of honey mushrooms are most similar to shiitake. Now honey mushroom does have a poisonous lookalike, deadly gallerina. These mushrooms will grow scattered instead of clustered like honey mushrooms and they're most common in the spring and in the fall. So if you find a mushroom that looks like honey mushrooms but you found it in the springtime, it's probably deadly gallerina and you want to leave that one alone. These are smaller in size and they have a rusty brown color and a rusty brown spore print. Now honey mushrooms have a white spore print. Chanterelles are one of the tastiest wild mushrooms. These vibrant fungi smell similar to apricots and come in many different colors. In North Carolina, there are several variations of chanterelles like golden chanterelles, cinnabar chanterelles, peach chanterelles, and many others that I cover in another video. To identify chanterelles, look for false gills on the underside. False gills are more like subtle wrinkles on the underside rather than true gills which can be detached easily. Chanterelles' inner stem should be white, contrasting with the outer color of the mushroom. They will also grow in singles and not in clusters like jack-o-lantern. These mushrooms fruit from late June to September in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Chanterelles like to form in the shaded regions at the edge of forests, streams, and trails. Chanterelles start their life cycle as a standard button mushroom shape but fan out into a vase shape with wavy ridges as they mature. Chanterelles are delicious when cooked and I like to pair them with pizza, pasta, or eggs. Hickory nuts start to fall in autumn and can be collected for food or drinks. Hickory nuts resemble black walnuts but they are smaller and the husk is divided into wedges that can be easily peeled off. As the nuts fall from the tree and hit the ground, a lot of the husk will fall off from impact. When collecting hickory nuts, you want to separate the viable nuts from the bad nuts. Discard any nuts that have holes in them or are lighter than the rest. You can also do a float test by filling a bucket with water and seeing which nuts float or sink. Discard the nuts that float and keep the ones that sink. Hickory nuts are one of the tastiest nuts you can find in the forest, however the nuts can be hard to extract from the shell. I generally use a hammer to crack the shells, but you can also use a nutcracker if you have access to that. You can eat the nuts plain, in pies, or in pancakes. You can also make a delicious nut milk from hickory as well. You can combine the broken shells and nuts into a large pot of water and simmer. The longer you steep the nuts and shells, the thicker the milk gets. This is one of my favorite beverages and it just tastes so woodsy and sweet. These bright blue mushrooms look like something from the Smurfs. They're known as indigo milkcap and they have some of the most vibrant blue color you can find in the forest. These mushrooms are also edible and have a similar texture to portobello mushrooms. While indigo milkcap has a dazzling color on the underside, it can be tricky to spot in the forest sometimes. The top of the mushroom is a much lighter pale blue color. They are often covered in leaf litter and pine needles when they emerge from the ground. This can give them a surprisingly good camouflage for such colorful mushrooms. These mushrooms can be found in the late summer and early fall. The trees that are associated with these mushrooms are oak, beech, and pine trees. Indigo milkcaps start off their life cycle as a flat round cap with thick edges. As the fungi matures, it'll form a vase shape with thin edges. On the underside, it has distinctive blue gills that bleed a dark milky sap whenever they're cut or bruised. This milky sap is said to make a great blue dye. Strangely enough, these mushrooms also have a very interesting fruity pebble smell to them. That's the best word I can use to describe it. The old indigos will lose their luster and start to form a greenish color over time. Indigo milkcaps are edible and have a similar taste to other milkcaps like leatherbacks. They are very interesting because they change the color of all the food you cook with it. So if you cook it with eggs, it'll turn your eggs a bluish green color. These are not a choice edible. They are not as tasty as other late summer mushrooms like chanterelles, but they are enjoyable to eat. In the colder months of the year, late fall oyster mushrooms emerge. This is a variety of oyster mushrooms that prefer their fruit in colder temperatures, often after the first frost. These mushrooms are thicker and meatier than the average oyster mushroom. They also have a slight seafood taste, and I personally prefer the taste and texture of this variety. I often find these mushrooms growing in November and December on hardwood, logs, and branches. This mushroom's texture makes them a great seafood and meat substitute. I've made delicious po'boy sandwiches with this mushroom, as well as mushroom nachos. Those are all the species I'm going to cover in this video, but subscribe for more foraging and bushcraft content.