(Underwood) Murrill
Cantharellus multiplex Underwood
Craterellus multiplex (Underwood) Shope
Phyllocarbon yasudai Lloyd.
Clusters of many fruiting bodies 8 – 20 cm. high and 50 cm. in diameter, separated into individual fan to spoon shaped fruiting bodies, but arising from a common base.
Cap (Pileus): 5 – 15 cm broad; when young plano-convex to fan or spoon shaped, becoming shallowly depressed to funnel shaped when mature; margins incurved when young then undulating and uplifted with maturity, entire when young then eroded and cracking with maturity; surface dry, smooth or slightly wrinkled, unpolished, sometimes with concentric zones of radiating threads appearing like alternating velvety and smooth zones, often with short hairs on the margins especially when young, unchanging with maturity, other times without zones; colour dark purplish violaceous to dark purple black becoming grey black with violet tinge with age, fading to pale buff on the margins; context 0.5 – 1.5 cm thick, soft and watery, brittle; colour dark, black to violet black, without zones, unchanging when bruised but staining black to olivaceous green with KOH; taste indistinctive; odour mild to slightly sweet.
Folds or Veins (Hymenium): strongly decurrent; a series of shallow, blunt ridges or wrinkles, sometimes smooth near pileus margin; ridges branching and with cross veins connecting each other; spaced widely; colour same as the pileus or at times pale brown to pale buff.
Stalk (Stipe): 3 – 7 cm long X 0.8 – 2.5 cm broad at the apex, tapering downwards, central or off centre, stout and often fused at the base, not very distinct and difficult to distinguish from the hymenium; surface dry, smooth to velvety, at times shallowly grooved; colour same as the pileus, unchanging when bruised; context solid, same colour or slightly paler than the pileus.
Spore print white; spores 5 – 6 X 7 – 9 µm, subglobose, rough with prominent nodules (tuberculate), inamyloid; basidia long and narrow; hymenium with narrow, cylindrical cystidia embedded among basidia; hyphae with clamps connections.
Comments: This distinctive mushroom is readily identified by its large, compound clusters, deep blue-blackish colour, white nodulose spores and the dark greenish colour reaction of the flesh when treated with KOH. Reports from other areas in North America indicate that this species may have smaller spores than are listed here.
The edible pig’s ear gomphus, Gomphus clavatus, may be confused with Polyozellus multiplex, but G. clavatus also has pale brown to yellowish buff tones and a paler purple colour, has smooth, ellipsoid spores, and the much thicker flesh of G. clavatus does not change to green with KOH. An aging Gomphus floccosus (usually bright orange) or the pale tan G. kauffmanii may be mistaken for the blue chanterelle, but they lack the blue to purple colours so diagnostic of P. multiplex. These mushrooms have yellowish spores that are roughened rather than nodulous and they have funnel shaped caps that are deeply depressed (vase-like) with age.
This unusual mycorrhizal mushroom forms fruiting bodies in clusters that are fused at the base in late summer to late autumn. It is found in coastal conifer forests in association with old-growth western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), Pacific silver fir (Abies amabalis) and sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) forests. Polyozellus multiplex is found in the northern, central and southern coasts, Vancouver Island and southern interior.
This mushroom is considered rare, as is collected only infrequently and only from old-growth forests. It is listed as a sensitive species in Washington, Oregon and California. This fungus, like other chanterelles, is edible and choice. Compounds that inhibit the peptidase enzymes involved in hormone maturation in human ovaries have been isolated from this mushroom.
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