''Volvariella volvacea'' (also known as paddy straw mushroom or straw mushroom) is a species of

edible mushroom Edible mushrooms are the fleshy and edible fruit bodies of several species of macrofungi (fungi which bear fruiting structures that are large enough to be seen with the naked eye). They can appear either below ground (hypogeous) or above ground ...

cultivated throughout

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

and used extensively in Asian cuisines. They are often available fresh in regions they are cultivated, but elsewhere are more frequently found canned or dried. Worldwide, straw mushrooms are the third most consumed mushroom.

Cultivation

Straw mushrooms are grown on rice straw beds and are most commonly picked when immature (often labeled "unpeeled"), during their button or egg phase and before the veil ruptures. They are adaptable and take four to five days to mature, and are most successfully grown in subtropical climates with high annual rainfall. No record has been found of their cultivation before the 19th century.

Nutrition

One cup of straw mushrooms is nutritionally dense and provides of

food energy Food energy is chemical energy that animals (including humans) derive from their food to sustain their metabolism, including their muscle, muscular activity. Most animals derive most of their energy from aerobic respiration, namely combining the ...

, 27.7 µg selenium (50.36% of RDA), 699 mg sodium (46.60%), 2.6 mg iron (32.50%), 0.242 mg copper (26.89%), 69 µg vitamin B₉ (Folate) (17.25%), 111 mg phosphorus (15.86%), 0.75 mg vitamin B₅ (pantothenic acid) (15.00%), 6.97 g protein (13.94%), 4.5 g total dietary fiber (11.84%), and 1.22 mg zinc (11.09%).

Identification

In their button stage, straw mushrooms resemble poisonous

death cap ''Amanita phalloides'' (), commonly known as the death cap, is a deadly poisonous basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus ''Amanita''. Widely distributed across Europe, but now sprouting in other parts of the world, ''A. phalloides ...

s, but can be distinguished by several mycological features, including their pink

spore print 300px, Making a spore print of the mushroom ''Volvariella volvacea'' shown in composite: (photo lower half) mushroom cap laid on white and dark paper; (photo upper half) cap removed after 24 hours showing pinkish-tan spore print. A 3.5-centimeter ...

(spore prints of death caps are white). The two mushrooms have different distributions, with the death cap generally not found where the straw mushroom grows natively, but immigrants, particularly those from Southeast Asia to California and Australia, have been poisoned due to misidentification.

References

External links

Straw Mushroom
* http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/SynSpecies.asp?RecordID=307802 * http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/NamesRecord.asp?RecordID=307802 Pluteaceae Chinese edible mushrooms Fungi described in 1786 Fungi in cultivation Fungi of Asia {{Agaricales-stub