The creamy-beige coloured, irregularly-shaped caps can be 1 to 4 inches wide (2 to 10 cm), and have gills under them.
The stalks, which are often curved, are white, and grow from 1 to 2 1/2 inches tall (3 to 7 cm.) The stalks have a bulbous base.
Younger ones are better, as older ones develop a yeasty taste. Ones that grow in moss can take on a mossy flavour.
Cooking Tips
Need cooking.
Language Notes
In England, St George’s mushroom always starts to appear on St George’s Day, 23 April, on the Salisbury Plain. Thus, their name.
Even though there is another mushroom that in English we call “Mousseron”, the French call that one “Faux Mousseron” and the St George’s Mushroom the “Mousseron vrai”, or just “Mousseron”.
In the scientific name, “Calocybe gambosa”, “calo” comes from the Greek for beautiful (“kalos”); “kube” comes from the Greek for head, thus beautiful head. “Gambosa” means big leg.