An hour and a half drive along a fairly decent road, another half hour along a country road, and now we are near the birch pegs. Pegs began to meet even earlier, but, according to friends who were here before us, there are not many mushrooms in them and it is not worth spending time checking for availability.

Now about the mushrooms. I'll start with the edible tubular.
The first on this list is, of course.

Boletus.

We start the article mushrooms of a birch forest naturally with a boletus.

Boletus genus Obabkovy family Boletovye. There are more than 40 types.
Fleshy caps, from light yellow to brown, on a not thick leg, light in black, rough scales, with a tubular hemenophore mesh, porous from beige to greenish. (The false boletus, which is not eaten, has a net, like a pink hat). Naturally met most often. But since the last rains took place three days ago, mushrooms more often came across either old or wormy, which are not recommended for food. This rule applies to absolutely all types of mushrooms.

Firstly, the old mushroom loses its taste, and secondly, it instantly becomes infected with mold and infects other mushrooms.

The worms in the mushrooms not only emit harmful toxins, but are also able to crawl onto completely healthy mushrooms, affecting them with their waste products.
Healthy birch mushrooms have a high nutritional value, contain absorbents that can support the functioning of diseased kidneys.
Second

White mushroom.

Although the porcini mushroom is considered the most delicacy, healthy and tasty, we met the porcini mushrooms of the birch forest less often, and for this reason, it fell into second place in the list of birch pegs mushrooms that we visited.
Why is the white mushroom called white? The main feature of this mushroom is that it does not darken like its other related species and always remains white during processing. This feature also helps distinguish white from false white, which turns pink when cut. Another distinctive feature, in white, the hymenophore layer is white or slightly yellowish, and in its counterpart it is pinkish.
White mushroom, dried and boiled soup, salted, pickled, fried and eaten in almost any form.
The third

Boletus

The boletus, or as my friend the redhead, as my friend calls it, was even less common than the white one, this is not surprising, although aspen grew in birch groves, but in extremely small quantities, this mushroom came across among it. Young aspen mushrooms grow on long legs and have a red cap that has not opened. And those that are older have a not so red, closer to a brownish, but already opened hemisphere cap. The cut of the mushroom or the depressed spongy hymenophore part of the cap turns slightly blue. When cooked, the flesh turns black.
Boletus boletus is good fried with potatoes.
A very satisfying mushroom. It would seem that a small frying pan, but with ready-made mushrooms fried in sunflower oil with onions and potatoes, is capable of saturating a small group of people.
Fourth

The flywheel is green.

The green flywheel was even less common, differing from the rest of the tubular brown cap with a slight green tint and a greenish spongy hemenophore. Cooking a flywheel is no different from birch and other mushrooms. Therefore, it is prepared together with everyone, with the exception of the porcini mushroom, which is prepared separately from the rest.

Lamellar

The milk is real (wet).

To be honest, I met a real lump for the first time in my life and did not take it into my trophies for anything, since I used to consider it a lump. If it were not for my friend mushroom picker, who since childhood, even with his father, visited these places and knew almost all the edible mushrooms of the birch forest, I would have missed him.

What puzzled me this mushroom?

• First, for its beauty. An almost perfect, round, white hat with a dimple in the center. Clean, as if well-groomed by someone, without hiding, stands in a clearing, in a small group covered with fallen leaves and grass blades.
• Secondly, with a velvety fluff covering his hat.
  Only the smell of a cut mushroom could confirm that it was a real milk mushroom or, as it is also called, wet.

Almost all cut wet ones had a hollow stem in the middle. Unfortunately, wormy ones were also caught, it was possible to determine the wormy mushroom or not by cutting it in half or completely cutting off the leg.
Second

Aspen milk

As I wrote above, among the birches there were also aspens, and in them, in addition to aspen mushrooms, and the aspen milk mushroom, which is familiar to me.
It differs from the present in the shape of the cap at a more mature age, if the young breast has an almost regular round shape of the cap with the edges bent inward and a hole in the center, then the adult loses its regularity and takes the form of a glass with uneven edges. It can grow singly or in a family of several mushrooms from young to old.

Milk mushrooms are eaten only after repeated soaking, sometimes they are boiled to get rid of the bitterness that it possesses. Even a soaked mushroom is not recommended to be consumed right away. Mushrooms that have been salted for at least forty days are accepted for food.

Milk mushrooms are rarely fried and boiled, they have a dense structure, but in appearance they are very tasty and with the right salting, they are eaten with pleasure with boiled potatoes.
The third

Champignon

Champignons are probably the most fragrant mushrooms in the birch forest and not only that I have come across and which I have eaten. Champignon is ubiquitous, I found it in the steppe, in meadows, in coniferous and deciduous forests, and birch forests were no exception, although most of the collected grew near the pegs.

Champignon is a very tasty mushroom, but for some reason, where I live, it is rarely salted and pickled. It is mainly eaten fried with potatoes. It is still dried and soup is boiled.

• You can save the champignon for a long time, if you soak it in cold water for several hours, cut off the part of the leg that was in the ground. Then rinse with the addition of citric acid and boil in salted water, spread hot together with the broth in jars and close with plastic lids. Soups and sauces are prepared from this broth.

Recently, they began to sell those grown in greenhouses, but they cannot be compared with wild ones. The champignon has a white, slightly rough, domed cap on top. In mature mushrooms, it can be almost flat. The hemenophore part of the fungus is lamellar, from pinkish in young, to dark brown in mature. Grows singly and rarely in families in the soil.

Has a strong external resemblance to the pale toadstool. A distinctive feature is the white color of the spore plates and the not very pleasant smell of toadstool.

Champignon also has its absolute counterpart among inedible mushrooms, this is yellow-skinned champignon. A distinctive feature of this mushroom is an unpleasant odor and yellowing of the pressure points on the mushroom.

Once you smell the champignon, you can't confuse it with anything.
Fourth

Russula

I don’t know for what reason, but we don’t eat this mushroom either. Perhaps the reason for this is its fragile structure. Until you deliver it to the house, nothing will remain of it, everything will crumble.
Bright red wavy caps, sometimes with whitish stains, on a cylindrical white stem, clearly visible against the background of vegetation.

Raincoat

Although a raincoat is considered an edible mushroom, in our area, none of my friends, and I have never eaten them, so I can’t say anything about the taste.

The raincoat looks like a young champignon, but does not have spore plates, and when cut off, it resembles a dense white ball. Maturation of spores occurs in the nutria of the fungus, therefore, in adulthood, with light pressure on the mushroom, it bursts and releases a column of greenish spores into the air.

I have never cooked a raincoat, but they write on the Internet that it is fried and soup is made. Peel before cooking. Young, dense mushrooms are eaten.

Well, it seems that all the edible mushrooms of the birch forest that I met in the pegs.

• Although some mushrooms of the birch forest are tasty and you want to eat as much as possible, I do not advise you to do this, as they require good digestion and can cause stomach upset.
• In mature mushrooms, be sure to remove the hemenophore layer, the spores of the fungus are almost indigestible.
• It's a good idea to put the peeled mushrooms in salted water for 30 minutes, this will help get rid of sand and small debris, as well as worms that you missed when cleaning mushrooms.
• You should not taste mushrooms.
• There are more mushrooms in sunny glades than in the wilderness
• Do not pick old flabby and wormy mushrooms.
• Do not take mushrooms with a brightly colored hat, they can be false.
• Mushrooms with a thickening in the lower part of the leg, like in the fly agaric, cannot be taken.
• Be sure to rinse and boil the lines and morels.
• Milky mushrooms, mushrooms that emit milky white juice on a cut or spore plates must be soaked or boiled for several days.
• If the mushroom is boiled, it will sit on the bottom, and it will float raw.
• When cleaning the oil, the skin of the cap is separated.
• The porcini mushroom does not change its taste and aroma with any method of preparation.
• Only a decoction of white and champignons is used as a seasoning.
• Russula can be boiled, fried and salted.
• Honey mushrooms are salted, pickled and fried.
• Chanterelles, inedible for worms, are quite suitable for food as salted, pickled and fried.
• Champignons have such a pleasant taste and smell that the addition of spices only worsens the taste of the dish.
• For cooking, storing and dressing mushrooms, sunflower oil is best suited. It is fried on it, added with onions to salted milk mushrooms when serving, mushrooms are poured on top of them, placed in jars to preserve them from the appearance of mold.

Inedible mushrooms

Piggy

I learned the name by comparing my photos with photos from the Internet.

This is a new mushroom for me, and I am wary of new things. For this reason, we did not collect pigs. And what pigs, if there are more interesting mushrooms. The pig looks like a lump, and has the color of a birch tree. Therefore, when you see it from afar, it is easy to confuse it with a birch tree, and only when you come closer and cut it off, you realize that you have been deceived, the pig has a lamellar hemenophore part.
The pig is considered an inedible mushroom. Although in some regions of Russia it is eaten after special processing.

Amanita.

These are the most famous and recognizable inedible mushrooms of the birch forest. A red cap with white dots on a thin, white stalk growing from a bulbous stalk, sometimes with a collar under an open cap. In Kolka, two species with a red and gray hat were caught.

One more species of mushrooms also met, but could not determine its belonging.

The rest were either not at all attractive, or clearly expressed their unfitness for food.

There was also a steppe bow in the pegs,
taking away the young leaves from which they dressed the tomato salad.

Many strawberry shoots also grew,
but there were no berries, the season was over.

Sometimes there were bushes with rare drupes.

Just before leaving, I decided to look into a small peg of young birches to see if there were any mushrooms in a birch forest, iiii, and climbed into a hornet's nest. Well, God gave me legs and the ability to run fast. Got twenty lightly bites in the back and one very first in the eyebrow.
Sixty kilometers to the first settlement I was driving with recurring stabbing pains at the bite sites, well, not driving.

We drove to an inhabited village and quickly to a stall for an antidote in the form of a 300 gram scale of vodka. I drank and felt better. The next day, only small red dots remained from the bites and no complications. Vodka is the best medicine for the bites of evil insects.

Beware of old dry birches with voids inside. Wasps are very fond of them and build nests there. Such trunks are most often found next to young birches.