Fairy ring champignonMarasmius oreades

Yes, without restrictions. Young mushrooms are best — in older ones the stem becomes very fibrous, so it's better to cut it off. You can cook it without boiling first. You should NOT pick it on lawns in city parks — heavy metals and pesticides build up there. In botanical gardens, out-of-town meadows and natural pastures it's safe.

Not many serious ones. The most important thing is to tell it apart from fool's funnel (Clitocybe rivulosa) and ivory funnel (C. dealbata) — poisonous white meadow mushrooms containing muscarine. The key difference: in Clitocybe the gills are decurrent and crowded, in the fairy ring champignon — free or notched, and distant. In Clitocybe the color is whitish to gray, in the fairy ring champignon — reddish cream with a distinct umbo. In Clitocybe the stem is brittle, in the fairy ring champignon it's springy and doesn't snap. If you find a white mushroom in a meadow, suspect Clitocybe — DON'T pick it.

If you accidentally eat a Clitocybe instead of a fairy ring champignon — muscarine syndrome after 30 minutes - 2 hours: salivation, sweating, nausea, abdominal pain, tachycardia, and in severe cases — breathing problems. The antidote is atropine (given by a doctor). Not fatal, but severe. Calling an ambulance is a must.

On meadows, lawns, pastures, forest edges, woodland clearings — among grass roots. It loves sunny open spots with short grass. It grows in characteristic "fairy rings" — 1 to 10 meters across, widening outward from the center year after year.

All over the country: the Carpathians, the Carpathian foothills, Polissia, the forest-steppe, the steppe. In the steppe zone it is especially abundant in the natural steppes and pastures of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa regions. One of the few mushrooms that does well in the open steppe.

May — November, with flushes after every warm rain. Unlike forest mushrooms that wait for seasonal conditions, the fairy ring champignon fruits year-round whenever there's enough moisture and the temperature is above +5°C. Dried out by the sun, it "revives" after the first drops of rain, which makes it perhaps the hardiest mushroom of all.

It's an evolutionary adaptation to drought — the fibrous stem doesn't dry out completely, letting the mushroom survive a dry spell and "come back to life" after rain. In most "fleshy" forest mushrooms the stem is new every day, in Marasmius it's reusable. That's also what makes it practically useless in the kitchen, so people usually take only the caps.

Drying is the best way. String the caps on a thread in the shade, and in 3-5 days you'll have an aromatic seasoning. Grind the dried mushrooms into powder and add it to soups, meat, sauces. Fry the young caps with onions. Pickle them after a short boil of 5-7 minutes. Stems separately into broth (they aren't edible because they're so fibrous, but they make a fragrant stock). Goes very well with potatoes, meat and omelets.