Hericium erinaceus - Lion's mane

Lion’s mane (Hericium erinaceus, and the related native H. americanum) is a forest-cultivated fungus grown on hardwood log totems, prized by chefs for a flavor said to resemble lobster or seafood.¹

Inputs

• Hardwood log totems (short stacked sections), American beech and sugar maple both used successfully, inoculated with sawdust spawn the same way as shiitake.¹
• Spawn run: about two years before fruiting begins, longer than shiitake’s one year; yield and the share of totems that fruit both peak in the third and fourth years, then decline.¹

Outputs

• Human food¹
• Medicinal use¹

Type

• Edible fungi

Footnotes

1. Lion’s Mane: A new candidate for profitable forest mushroom cultivation | Cornell Small Farms Program ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵