Lobster Mushrooms – Hypomyces lactifluorum

Description

We unearthed our collection of lobster mushrooms during the move. Some of them Kathy foraged at a friend’s property a few years back. The lobster mushroom is interesting because it is not a mushroom but rather a parasitic fungus that grows on certain species of mushrooms, resulting in a bright orange color.  It is an edible mushroom, but our specimens are not to be eaten as we harvested mushrooms that were past their prime and left the perfect ones for another forager’s mushroom risotto.

Lobster mushrooms infects a mushroom species, Russula brevipes and causes the outside to turn bright orange-red. The color on wool ranges from a soft peach shade to a deep magenta with pH shifts or with an iron post treatment. It is so rewarding to find them peeking out from under a heavy pine needle carpet if you are a new forager because they are easy to see!

We offer them in 25g packages, which will dye about 35-70g of fiber. The mushrooms work best on wool and animal fibers with an alum mordant.  Julie Beeler dyed our samples and got some beautiful shades by modifying pH with soda ash. She also achieved rich mulberry shades with an initial iron mordant. You can use the remaining exhaust bath to create a pigment and make paints and inks from this special color.

Check out our instructions for dye mushrooms here!