Green Grass Grove
Connecting specimen records, habitat data, and the living archive.
Bear's Head Tooth
Hericium americanumBranching native Hericium with clusters of hanging white teeth.
Botanical Overview
Branching native Hericium with clusters of hanging white teeth.
Ethnobotanical, Bioactive & Cultural Documentation
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 white-rot decomposer of dead hardwood
Natural Host / Substrate: Dead hardwood trunks and logs, or supplemented hardwood sawdust.
Cultivation Environment: Side-fruited blocks or shaded logs with room for branched clusters and hanging teeth.
Bear’s head tooth forms branched clusters with pendent teeth; it is distinct from the compact unbranched form expected of H. erinaceus.
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 hardwood sawdust, or sawdust/plug spawn to hardwood units.
Sterile Workflow / Flow Hood: Sterilize supplemented blocks and inoculate aseptically; outdoor wood is inoculated cleanly with verified spawn.
Low-Tech / Still-Air-Box Workflow: Use ready-to-fruit blocks or inoculated hardwood totems in shade; protect clusters from slugs, rain splash, and drying.
Spawn, Grain & Fruiting Substrates
Spawn / Inoculum: Verified grain or hardwood sawdust spawn.
Fruiting Substrate: Sterilized supplemented hardwood blocks, hardwood logs, or totems.
Natural Host: Dead hardwood trunks and logs, or supplemented hardwood sawdust.
Colonization, Fruiting & Environment
Colonization: Colonize near 20–24 C until the block is fully consolidated; isolate sectors or slow cultures.
Fruiting: Provide 14–20 C, high humidity, diffuse light, and generous fresh air through small side openings.
Humidity / Fresh-Air Exchange: High humidity is required during pinning, but elevated CO2 produces excessive branching and poor tooth elongation.
Fruiting Triggers: Full colonization, oxygen exposure, cooler conditions, diffuse light, and high humidity.
Outdoor, Log & Bed Cultivation
Suitable on hardwood logs or totems where humidity remains high and direct sun is excluded.
Harvest, Contamination & Culture Storage
Harvest Cues: Harvest white branched clusters when pendant teeth are developed but before yellowing, softening, or heavy spore release.
Contamination Risks: Molds, bacteria on wet clusters, competitor fungi, flies, mites, and mislabeling with other Hericium species.
Culture / Spawn Storage: Retain low-passage master cultures with provenance and periodic fruit-body identity confirmation.
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
Cultivated fruit bodies are treated as culinary after cooking, but allergy, gastrointestinal reaction, and species misidentification remain possible.
Keep strain identity attached to the culture and do not infer wild edibility from a generic Hericium common name.