Green Grass Grove
Connecting specimen records, habitat data, and the living archive.
Lion's Mane
Hericium erinaceusChoice edible tooth fungus with active research interest in hericenones and erinacines.
Botanical Overview
Choice edible tooth fungus with active research interest in hericenones and erinacines.
Ethnobotanical, Bioactive & Cultural Documentation
Document culinary, medicinal, cultural, craft, ecological, or entheogenic history with named sources and regional context.
Record verified compounds and analytical sources here. Do not infer clinical efficacy from compound presence alone.
Relationships are ranked A–X in fungal_relationship_evidence; unsupported strain claims require confirmation.
Confirm local regulations before cultivation, sale, transport, release, or wild collection.
Mycology Overview & Ecology
Category: Culinary
Trophic Mode: saprotrophic and weakly parasitic white-rot decomposer of hardwood
Natural Host / Substrate: Dead or declining hardwood, hardwood logs, and supplemented hardwood sawdust.
Cultivation Environment: Side-fruited filter-patch blocks or shaded hardwood totems with room for pendant tooth development.
Lion’s mane should form a compact unbranched mass with long pendent teeth. Coral-like branching or severe elongation indicates identity or environmental problems.
Inoculation Methods & Sterile Technique
Agar Transfer
Clean tissue or culture is transferred between sterile agar plates to isolate healthy growth and verify contamination before expansion.
Liquid Culture
A verified clean culture is expanded in sterile nutrient solution for measured syringe or pipette inoculation.
Grain Spawn
Sterile grain is colonized as an expansion medium, then used to inoculate a species-appropriate fruiting substrate. Grain is not a universal fruiting substrate.
Sawdust Spawn
Hardwood sawdust spawn is useful for wood-loving fungi, production blocks, logs, stumps, and outdoor beds.
Plug Spawn
Colonized wooden dowels are inserted into drilled hardwood logs or stumps for long-term outdoor fruiting.
Outdoor Bed
Spawn is layered through moistened hardwood chips, straw, or species-appropriate organic material in a shaded bed.
Sterile Block
Supplemented sawdust or another validated substrate is hydrated, bagged, sterilized, inoculated, colonized, then fruited under controlled conditions.
Low-Tech Purchased Spawn
A beginner-friendly route using commercially prepared clean spawn with pasteurized straw, logs, or outdoor beds when the species supports it.
Species-Specific Inoculation: Agar to grain, grain to supplemented sawdust, or sawdust/plug spawn to hardwood totems and logs.
Sterile Workflow / Flow Hood: Sterilize supplemented blocks and inoculate aseptically; separate clean master culture from production transfers.
Low-Tech / Still-Air-Box Workflow: Purchase ready-to-fruit blocks or use verified spawn in contained hardwood totems; side fruit to reduce water pooling.
Spawn, Grain & Fruiting Substrates
Spawn / Inoculum: Verified grain spawn or supplemented hardwood sawdust spawn.
Fruiting Substrate: Sterilized supplemented hardwood blocks, hardwood logs, or outdoor totems.
Natural Host: Dead or declining hardwood, hardwood logs, and supplemented hardwood sawdust.
Colonization, Fruiting & Environment
Colonization: Colonize hardwood blocks near 20–24 C until fully white and consolidated; prevent internal heat buildup.
Fruiting: Cut small side openings and provide 15–20 C, diffuse light, high humidity, and frequent fresh air.
Humidity / Fresh-Air Exchange: High humidity during initiation with strong fresh-air exchange; standing water on top-fruited clusters promotes bacterial damage.
Fruiting Triggers: Full block consolidation, oxygen exposure through small cuts, cooler conditions, diffuse light, and high humidity.
Outdoor, Log & Bed Cultivation
Possible on hardwood totems or logs in deep shade with dependable moisture, though production is less predictable than indoor blocks.
Harvest, Contamination & Culture Storage
Harvest Cues: Harvest while teeth are white, elongated, and tender, before yellowing, drying, or heavy sporulation.
Contamination Risks: Green molds, bacteria from wet fruit bodies, competitor wood fungi, mites, flies, and culture degeneration.
Culture / Spawn Storage: Maintain low-passage refrigerated slants or cryogenic master stock; fruit-test working cultures because morphology varies by strain.
Mycology Batch Planner
Mycology Batch Calculator
Estimate hydrated spawn and bulk substrate for legal culinary, functional, educational, and ecological fungi. Select a working vessel, choose the fill target and spawn ratio, then enter the number of units.
Pests, Diseases, Safety & Toxicology
A verified cultivated crop is culinary after cooking, but allergy and gastrointestinal reactions are possible. Preclinical research is not proof of medical efficacy.
Use verified culture and maintain dry, clean fruiting surfaces. Wild Hericium species require expert identification.