Giant golovach (giant raincoat, giant langermania) (lat. Calvatia gigantea) is an edible mushroom that belongs to the department of basidiomycetes, class agaricomycetes, order agaric, family champignon, genus golovach.

Giant raincoat (giant golovach) - description and characteristics.
Giant raincoat mushrooms (golovachs) can reach a diameter of 35 centimeters. The weight of the golovach can be 10 kilograms. Such a mushroom has neither a cap nor a leg. The fruiting body is spherical. The giant raincoat has snow-white flesh, a pleasant smell, and also a pleasant taste. As the mushroom matures more and more, the white color changes to yellow and then green. The raincoat should not be eaten when it begins to turn yellow.

Where does the giant goby grow?
Mushrooms bear fruit from early summer to October. For germination, the raincoat chooses soil rich in nitrogen in glades and edges of deciduous or mixed forests, and also grows in steppes, meadows, fields, parks, gardens, and pastures.

Giant golovach - useful properties.
These mushrooms contain a useful substance called calvacin. It is used by traditional medicine doctors in the treatment of kidneys, leukemia and tumors. A flu vaccine is made from a giant raincoat. The mushroom can help with laryngitis, smallpox and hives. When bleeding, the cut giant puffball and its spores have a healing effect. There are many decoctions and preparations from this fungus. Preparations, which include fungal spores, cleanse the body of toxins, metals and radionuclides. The medicine from the spores of the giant goby is used for diabetes, pleurisy, pulmonary tuberculosis and bronchial asthma.

How to cook giant golovach?
You can add a giant raincoat to your diet, but only a white mushroom with white and elastic pulp. The shell is removed, and the flesh is cut into layers. Layers of mushrooms can be fried in batter or breadcrumbs. Cooking this mushroom is not worth it, because when cooked, it acquires an unpleasant taste, absorbing a lot of water.
Another way to eat mushrooms is to dry them. The raincoat dries very easily and quickly.

false raincoat
Like most types of mushrooms, there is an inedible mushroom that is very similar to a giant puffball - this is a false puffball. False raincoat on the outside and on the pulp is darker than a real raincoat.

How to grow a giant golovach (raincoat) yourself?
One such giant as a raincoat can feed a whole family for dinner. To find a giant raincoat (golovach), it is not necessary to look for it in the forest or in a store, you can grow a mushroom with your own hands. Mycelium will help in this matter. Mycelium is a fungal vegetative body consisting of hyphae - thin, branched filaments. Under natural conditions, one gram of forest litter contains up to 35 kilometers of mycelium. A place for future sowing is chosen shady. Places in raspberries, under trees, in grass or shrubs are suitable. The main requirement for all these places is that the temperature at any time of the year, except for winter, should be at least 14 degrees, but not more than 29 degrees. The mushroom bears fruit every 20 days already 4 weeks after planting. When a landing site is chosen, the ground must be loosened and the mycelium of the giant raincoat should be evenly scattered. Then it is necessary to cover the mycelium with a seven-centimeter layer of earth and water the planted raincoat.

Interesting Facts:
In the 19th century, hairdressers kept a piece of dried giant golovach with them: the pulp applied to the cut helped to quickly stop the blood and contributed to the rapid healing of the wound.

Golovach mushroom is a bright representative of the Golovach genus of the Champignon family. A fairly common mushroom in many regions of the Russian Federation. It can often be found in deciduous and mixed forests, meadows, steppes, fields, even in city parks and squares. The original appearance, size and shape easily distinguish it from other decomposers of its kind. Edible mushroom is widely used in cooking and folk medicine.

Grows singly or in groups. Often has a spherical, oval, egg-shaped fruiting body, slightly flattened. The golovach mushroom grows up to 10 - 50 cm in diameter. In a young specimen, the body is white, as it matures, it darkens, cracks, acquires various dark shades of yellow or brown. The pulp or gleba at the beginning of growth is white, elastic, after ripening it is cotton-like, friable, pale green or brown. The leg is white, thick, cylindrical in shape, it can thicken or narrow towards the ground, in many species the leg is short, in others it can grow up to 15–20 cm.

A characteristic distinguishing feature - during ripening, the fruiting body almost completely cracks and disappears. The spores of the fungus are brown.
For cooking, only young mushrooms with white, dense, elastic pulp are used.

Varieties and counterparts

The genus of golovach mushrooms includes more than 30 species. The most common 3 types: giant, baggy, oblong. Out of ignorance, many confuse this mushroom with raincoats, powder coats, although this is not scary, since these species are also edible.

Golovach round baggy

Another name for this species is the golovach bubble-shaped, rounded, hare raincoat. The hat is spherical, slightly compressed, from above reaches a diameter of up to 15 cm, tapers towards the ground, forming a false leg. It reaches a height of 20 cm. The surface is white, with characteristic dotted bulges resembling short needles or spikes. The pulp is white, elastic. As it ripens, the color of the fruiting body and the inner pulp changes - from yellow to dark brown. After full ripening, the upper part of the fruiting body disintegrates, exposing the pulp with spores, the fungus takes the form of a wide bowl with jagged edges. Spores are brown.

It sprouts almost everywhere - in forests, meadows and fields, in most cases you can find a single mushroom, in groups they germinate extremely rarely. Gathered from the end of May to the second half of September, the peak of growth is July.

This species belongs to the 4th category of edible mushrooms; only specimens with white flesh are eaten.

Golovach giant langermania

The fruit body is rounded, up to 0.5 m in diameter, slightly compressed from above. The leg is short, barely noticeable under a massive hat. In a young mushroom, the flesh is white, elastic, turns yellow when ripe, becomes loose, then acquires a brown hue.

The giant golovach becomes brown after full maturation, then the shell is torn almost completely, exposing the inner part with spores.

A huge, gigantic fungus sprouts mostly singly in the forests of the temperate zone.

Golovach oblong

Other names - elongated raincoat, marsupial golovach. The fruiting body is shaped like a pin or an inverted pear. It reaches a height of up to 18 cm. A small hat is rounded, smoothly passes into a pseudopod, expanded near the ground. The diameter of the wide part is 5–7 cm, the narrow part is up to 4 cm. The surface is heterogeneous, rough, covered with spikes of various sizes. The young mushroom is white, in the process of ripening it acquires darker shades, up to dark brown. At the same time, the pulp also changes - elastic and white, it darkens, becomes loose. After maturation, the cap breaks and falls off, the pseudopod in most cases remains standing. Spores are dark brown.

Golovach oblong sprouts from the second half of July until the end of September, either in groups or singly. It occurs in mixed forests, meadows and fields.

In cooking, only a hat is used.

Golovach oblong

Related species

Very often, the golovach mushroom is mistaken for a large prickly puffball, especially a specimen with a short pseudopod. It is difficult to see a big difference, especially at a young age. When ripe, the puffball ejects spores from a crack in the cap, while the cap disintegrates in the bighead.

cultivation

Golovach is easy to grow at home, in the country or in the garden. To do this, it is enough to find an old mushroom in the forest that has not yet “thrown off” its head. The hat is finely cut and soaked for a day in water, then the resulting mixture is poured into the area where they want to get a mushroom clearing.

Another way is to pass the mushroom through a meat grinder, pour the mass into a jar, add live yeast and a little sugar, mix well, let it brew for a couple of days. It is believed that the germination of fungal spores increases several times with this method of cultivation.

The first shoots can be observed after 4 - 6 months.

The benefits of the mushroom

Having a large mass and size, the giant golovach is attractive as a trophy for mushroom pickers. In any case, whether it is a young mushroom or an old one, it will find application, if not in cooking, then as a folk medicine.

Application in cooking

In cooking, only young, fresh golovachs, with white flesh, are used. In this they differ from champignon mushrooms and other representatives that can easily withstand long-term storage in the cold.

Do not store golovach for a long time, over time, the concentration of toxic substances increases.

The golovach is giant, baggy and oblong, unlike other mushrooms, it does not require pre-cooking. It is used in frying, baking and soups. Prepared like other mushrooms that do not require preliminary heat treatment.

Application in medicine

The giant golovach is widely used in folk and traditional medicine. For the preparation of various drugs and medicines, only fully matured specimens are used. This type of mushroom has antioxidant, anesthetic, anti-inflammatory, antitumor and hemostatic properties. Ripe spores or thin layers of golovach are used. For cuts, the wound is sprinkled with spore powder or a thin layer of pulp is applied. Also used to treat laryngitis, smallpox, urticaria.

Danger from the fungus

It is extremely dangerous to eat old golovachi, as you can get poisoned. In such mushrooms, the concentration of toxins increases; when consumed, the reaction of the body can be lethal. Signs of poisoning do not appear immediately, but after 2-3 days, during which time the internal organs are severely affected.

Langermannia (giant golovach) - in cooking, the cap and leg of the conditionally edible mushroom of the same name, one of the varieties of champignon. Differs from it in gigantic size. The diameter of individual specimens can reach 70 cm. However, only young mushrooms of much smaller sizes are used in cooking - up to 10 cm in diameter. In addition, they are distinguished by the snow-white color of the pulp, indicating the absence of a hazardous amount of toxic substances in its chemical composition. But, despite this, this mushroom is eaten only after heat treatment.

calories

100 grams of Langermann contains about 22 kcal.

Compound

The chemical composition of Langermannia is characterized by an increased content of proteins, carbohydrates, ash, vitamins (B3, B5, B9), macro- (potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus) and microelements (manganese, selenium, zinc).

How to cook

As noted earlier, langermannia is a conditionally edible mushroom, since it is suitable for consumption only at a young age after heat treatment. Depending on the size of the mushroom, it should last at least 7-15 minutes. Older mushrooms with a yellowish surface and flesh are very high in toxins.

Langermannia owes its widespread use in cooking, first of all, to its excellent taste. After cooking, it becomes very similar to tofu or melted cheese. Before cooking, it is extremely important to remove the tough skin and brown areas of the flesh. Since the pulp of langermannia is hygroscopic, these mushrooms should be cooked with a very small amount of water. Therefore, they are most often used in the preparation of second fried dishes from vegetables, meat and poultry, in most cases they are used as an alternative to eggplant. In addition, langermannia is great for making various salads and cold appetizers. Often, these mushrooms are used in dried crushed form, as a spice.

How to choose

When choosing Langermannia, it should be borne in mind that only young mushrooms are suitable for human consumption. They differ in white color, both on the surface and on the pulp.

Storage

Fresh langermannia should be stored in the refrigerator and eaten within a few days. If you need a longer shelf life, these mushrooms can be frozen, after frying their small pieces in vegetable or butter. In this form, they can be stored for up to a year, provided that the temperature regime is observed - no higher than minus 18 degrees Celsius.

Beneficial features

With a low calorie content, langermannium differs in chemical composition, containing a fairly impressive list of biologically active substances. This feature, combined with low calorie content, determines the presence of a number of useful properties in these mushrooms. In particular, their use reduces the level of sugar and cholesterol in the blood, normalizes heart rate and blood pressure, improves the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, reduces the risk of cancer, has an antioxidant, hemostatic, anti-inflammatory and antiviral effect.

Use restrictions

It is strongly not recommended to eat adult Langermannia. When ripe, these mushrooms become extremely poisonous due to the very high content of toxins. At the same time, their poisoning manifests itself only on the second day after consumption, when they affect the kidneys and liver, causing vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramps. Even with the provision of timely medical care on the fourth day, a relapse of poisoning may occur in the form of acute renal and hepatic failure, as well as blood clotting disorders, which ultimately leads to death.

This mushroom has many names. For example, a gigantic raincoat and giant langermannia. These mushrooms are called golovachs because of the peculiar shape of the fruiting body, which really resembles a head. Well, the name "raincoat" was given due to the fact that often these mushrooms appeared in the forest after heavy rains.

No wonder the golovach is called giant. He is a real champion heavyweight among edible mushrooms. People who discovered it in the forest do not always immediately understand that they really have a mushroom fruit body in front of them, because most are used to collecting smaller “trophies”. There is a known case when one of the lovers of quiet hunting managed to find a golovach weighing more than 25 kg.

MUSHROOM-SINGLE

Giant raincoats grow not in groups, but singly. Large white "heads" can be found in deciduous and mixed forests, in fields and meadows, in ravines - where moist soils rich in nutrients occur. You can find these mushrooms from the beginning of June to the end of September.

Scientists have noticed that golovachi do not grow constantly in one area for a long time. They can disappear in this place for many years or even completely disappear. Species of mushrooms growing in this way are called meteoric by experts.

Despite the fact that the giant goby is truly phenomenal in size, there are inedible mushrooms that can compete with it in size. So, in the 1940s, a huge tinder fungus Oxyporus nobilissimus was discovered, weighing 140 kg and about a meter in diameter.

FIND FOR GOURMET

The fruit body of the giant golovach is round in shape. At the bottom of this huge "head" is a thin leg, consisting of an interweaving of fungal hyphae. Golovach, like most other fungi, forms mycorrhiza with the roots of nearby trees. From above, the fruiting body is covered with a thin white skin. Over time, it, like the snow-white pulp of a raincoat, acquires a brownish tint. Young golovachi can be eaten - their flesh looks like cotton wool, but has a characteristic taste and smell. Connoisseurs say that this mushroom is especially tasty when fried. Having decided to try this delicacy, it is worth remembering that it is better to eat it within a day after harvesting, otherwise the mushroom will become unfit for food. If the raincoat found in the forest has already acquired a greenish or brown color, it is not worth collecting and preparing it. In a mature fungus, the outer shell darkens and soon bursts, thus releasing millions of brown spores.

WHO ARE GASTEROMYCETS

AMAZING PROPERTIES

Biologists managed to isolate a substance called "calvacin" from the fruiting body of a giant goby. It comes from the Latin generic name for a raincoat. Calvacin has antitumor activity, and is also an antibiotic of natural origin. Probably, it was precisely because of the presence of the fungus calvacina in the fruiting body that the giant golovach was widely used in folk medicine to treat various diseases.

History has preserved an interesting fact: many hairdressers of the 19th century always kept a small piece of a dried raincoat with them while working. The pulp applied to the cut helped stop the blood and contributed to the rapid healing of wounds.

DON'T MISS!

Small golovachs can be easily confused with false puffballs (Scleraderma aurantium), which do not belong to agaric, but to boletus fungi - a completely different systematic group. These twin mushrooms are also found in forests and have a rounded fruiting body. Despite the fact that these mushrooms are not poisonous, you should not eat them: the taste and smell of false puffballs are rather unpleasant. It is possible to distinguish false puffballs from giant golovaches by the color of the pulp: it is not white, but dark purple, and the outer shell covering the fruiting body is not thin in false puffballs, but dense and leathery.

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF

Kingdom: mushrooms.
Department: basidiomycetes.
Class: Agaricomycetes.
Family: champignons.
Genus: head.
Species: giant golovach.
Latin name: Calvatia gigantea.
Size: diameter up to 50 cm.

Mushrooms - Fungi
Langermannia gigantea (Batsch.) Rostk. (1839)

Status: 3(R). Rare, possibly endangered species.

Short description.

Fruiting bodies are very large, from 8 to 50 cm in diameter or more, with a thick rhizomatous mycelial cord at the point of attachment to the substrate. Exoperidium very thin, papery, fine-tomentose, smooth, then platy-cracking and disappearing, first white, then yellowish, grayish brownish.

The endoperidium is thick, brittle, cracks into irregular pieces, which fall off, exposing a cotton-like gleba covered with spore powder. Gleba is white at first, then yellowish-greenish, when fully ripe olive-brown with a barely visible sterile base. Spores are spherical, smooth or slightly warty, 3.5–5 µm in diameter, often with a small remnant of sterigma. Capillary hyphae are very long, branched, the main trunk is 4 - 6 microns in diameter.

Spreading.

Known from some areas of the southern part of the region: Taseevsky, Shirinsky, Kansky, Emelyanovsky, Balakhtinsky, Turukhansky, env. city ​​of Krasnoyarsk. Russia: European part, Caucasus; Western Siberia - Shegarsky district of the Tomsk region; Republic of Altai, very rare everywhere. Baikal region - Angarsk, Olkhonsky and Selenginsky botanical and geographical regions, the Far East. Outside of Russia, Langermannia is distributed in all countries of Europe, North America (American Prairies); Asia - Kazakhstan, China, India, Java, Australia. Very rare everywhere.

Ecology and biology.

Humus saprotroph. Occurs singly or in small groups on humus-rich soil. On the edges of various types of deciduous and mixed forests, in fields, meadows, steppes, pastures, occasionally on urban lawns.

limiting factors. Not known.

Security measures. Search for new locations.

Information sources.. 1. Shubin, Krutov, 1979; 2 Julich, 1984; 3. Beglyanova, 1971; 4. Herbarium KRF; 5. Mushrooms..., 1980; 6. Perova and Gorbunova, 2001; 7. Petrov, 1991; 8. Sosin, 1973; 9. Shvartsman, Filimonova, 1970. Compiled by: N.P. Kutafiev. Figure: V.S. Stepanov, N.V. Stepanov.