Young Jack O Lantern Mushrooms
Jack o’lanterns are a good mushroom to know, since they’re poisonous and are probably the main imposter for chanterelles that you’ll see while hunting across. They are a textbook case of a poisonous mushroom being a “look a like” for an edible one. It’s easy to tell the difference after you’ve hunted chanterelles for a while, but at first it was a little tricky and I definitely came close to putting them in the mushroom basket.
When and where do Jack O’Lanterns fruit?
In hardwood forests with white oak trees in the Midwest where I hunt, these start to fruit after the Chanterelles while the Lobster Mushrooms are fruiting and right before the Hen of the woods start to come up, typically late August or September. Golden chanterelles start to fruit in July.
Large fruiting of Jack o lantern’s growing parasitically on a tree. Chanterelles will never grow directly from wood like this.
Whats the difference between a Chanterelle and a Jack O’Lantern?
Probably the easiest way to tell them apart is that Jack O’Lantern mushrooms grow in a cluster,they will be growing in a connected clump from a single root, unlike Chanterelles that grow by themselves.
Chanterelles also have fake “gills” that extend down their stem, and will typically fork as well. Jack O’Lanterns are usually much bigger than Chanterelles, although you can get an occasional extra large chanterelle.
Jack O’Lanterns are also parasites, they feed off of living and decaying trees (see picture above), chanterelles are mycorhyzal: growing symbiotically with trees in a mutually beneficial relationship.
Jack O Lanterns in a yard. Notice their deep orange color and how they grow in clusters. These are growing from dead wood too, but you can’t see it, since it’s a buried tree stump.
found a large jack o lantern in battle creek! thought it was a chanterelle, thank you for your pictures and write up, i was ready to try it!
Glad I could be of help. I have tasted jack o lanterns in the field and surprisingly, they taste good, which is a little scary. Good luck with the chanterelles!
wikipedia says about this mushroom, “Complicating its toxicity is the fact that it smells and looks very appealing, to the extent that there are reports of repeat poisonings from individuals who were tempted to try them a second time.”
At least you didn’t do that.
I’m so glad I came across your website. And especially to read that Jack o Lanterns fruit a little later in the summer, since today I worried I picked 2 and threw them in the bag alongside the chanterelles. These 2 were growing right next to each other, the bases seemed to be attached or right alongside each other, and so afterwards I began worrying that they were actually a very young jack o lantern cluster. Maybe a cluster starts with just 2.
What do you think?
I am brand new to collecting chanterelles, today was my second time, and so I would fit perfectly into the category of amateur who would make this mistake. Hopefully I’m saved just by timing this time, if the Jack o lanterns aren’t fruiting yet.
Thanks again for your great description!
I’d like to post this to say that eating these mushrooms – at least, a small serving – won’t kill you, but DON’T DO IT! A couple of days ago, my neighbor brought me 4 *chanterelles* he had picked in his yard; oh, goody! A couple were a bit large for chanterelles, but I’ve seen some large ones before. Several years ago, I had gathered some nice ones from a part of his yard where 12-15 white oaks grow. When he gave these fungi to me the other day, they were loose in his hands (not connected to one another) and he said they came “from the lawn by an oak tree.” The ‘shrooms smelled lightly fruity and were nice & firm.
Soon afterward, I fried up some onions in butter & a little olive oil, added the cleaned, sliced mushrooms and allowed things to cook several minutes before adding some parboiled potatoes, then let everything cook a bit longer. Smelled good, and it was indeed tasty, though the mushrooms were a bit tougher than I thought they should be. Ate probably what amounted to maybe 1/4 to 1/3 cup of chopped mushrooms along with the veggies; put the rest of the meal in a container for the next day.
Well, the next day the rest went into the garbage! About 30-45 minutes after I had eaten my supper, my stomach felt very queasy. Then I began to salivate as my stomach began to churn. For the next 3-4 hours, I vomited violently and repeatedly. Nice to know that my gut recognized POISON!! and did its best to get rid of it!
Last evening my neighbor called me over to look at more that had popped up – in a very lovely, very typical cluster of more than 15 fruits coming from a single “stem” that I was able to pull intact from the ground. These were NOT growing in the area where the real chanterelles had appeared in the past, but a couple hundred yards away, on the other side of his house, but about 6 feet from the stump of a white oak that had died a while back. I told my neighbor what had ensued 2 nights before & he apologized saying, “Not my fault – that’s why I don’t eat mushrooms!” I assured him it was indeed not his fault but my stupidity and the fact that I wanted to believe they were chanterelles – but had I seen them actually growing, I would have known they were not. Lesson learned; from now on, I’ll gather my own mushrooms – and for now have completely lost my taste for chanterelles!!
Oh my lord god. I am really sorry you had an experience like that. Don’t let it turn you off of chanterelles. Chanterelles are easy to differentiate from Jack O’Lanterns, but you do need to be familiar with them. Keep in mind it wasn’t the chanterelles fault that you ate the Omphalotus. Hope you’re feeling better.
Thank you, Chef, for your good wishes. Oh, I was perfectly fine the next day, albeit tired from my gut keeping me up until about 2 AM. 😉 I did go a bit easy on my stomach that next day however, eating mild & innocuous foods! No: I do not fault the chanterelles – it was totally my stupidity, and as I said, have just lost my appetite for chanterelles *for now*. They are too wonderful to forego entirely!