Green Grass Grove
Connecting specimen records, habitat data, and the living archive.
Coral Tooth Fungus
Hericium coralloidesHighly branched coral-like Hericium species.
Botanical Overview
Highly branched coral-like Hericium species.
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 logs and branches, or supplemented hardwood sawdust.
Cultivation Environment: Side-fruited blocks or shaded wood with enough open space for coral-like branches.
Coral tooth produces an extensively branched fruit body with teeth along the branches. Do not collapse distinct Hericium identities into a generic lion’s-mane record.
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 sawdust, or sawdust/plug spawn to hardwood units.
Sterile Workflow / Flow Hood: Sterilize supplemented blocks and inoculate aseptically; maintain separate master and working cultures.
Low-Tech / Still-Air-Box Workflow: Use verified ready-to-fruit blocks or contained hardwood totems; accurate culture labeling is essential.
Spawn, Grain & Fruiting Substrates
Spawn / Inoculum: Verified grain or sawdust spawn from a fruit-tested culture.
Fruiting Substrate: Sterilized supplemented hardwood blocks, hardwood logs, or totems.
Natural Host: Dead hardwood logs and branches, or supplemented hardwood sawdust.
Colonization, Fruiting & Environment
Colonization: Colonize near 20–24 C until fully consolidated; avoid overheating and premature exposure.
Fruiting: Provide 14–20 C, diffuse light, high humidity, and strong fresh-air exchange.
Humidity / Fresh-Air Exchange: Maintain high humidity at primordia but avoid stagnant air and wet branching tissue.
Fruiting Triggers: Full colonization, oxygen exposure, cooler conditions, diffuse light, and high humidity.
Outdoor, Log & Bed Cultivation
Possible on shaded hardwood logs or totems, with longer and less predictable cycles than indoor blocks.
Harvest, Contamination & Culture Storage
Harvest Cues: Harvest clean white coral-like clusters with developing teeth before yellowing, drying, or fragmentation.
Contamination Risks: Green molds, bacteria on waterlogged branches, competitor wood fungi, mites, flies, and culture misidentification.
Culture / Spawn Storage: Store low-passage cultures refrigerated or cryogenically and verify identity through fruiting morphology or sequence records.
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 harvest may be culinary after cooking, but species misidentification, allergy, and gastrointestinal reactions remain possible.
Use a verified culture and expert identification for wild collections.