Chanterelle

chanterelle a French name adopted as the English one for an excellent edible mushroom, Cantharellus cibarius, which the French themselves as often call girolle. It grows all over Europe and in many parts of the USA, particularly W. Virginia, appearing in late summer and autumn in woods of all kinds. It also occurs in parts of Africa, for example Zambia, and in China. It is a small fungus, never more than 8 cm (3") high or wide, and usually much less. It has a distinctive shape aptly described by Jane Grigson (1975) as ‘a curving trumpet, with delicate ribs running from the stalk through to the under edge of the cap like fine vaulting’. Its colour is a bright apricot-orange; and the smell sometimes resembles that of apricots, especially in European specimens.