For a number of years connections of mine up in and around Cairns and Kuranda in Far North Queensland have been raving about the local chanterelle (Cantharellus) species.
There appears to be a pale and a reddish variant. Flavour packs a punch by reports and unlike our southern ones apparently rivals that of the European and American varieties.
Recently our friend Ryan happened upon these which match the description of the ‘Kuranda chants’ quite closely.
Thanks to Ryan for these great photos taken near the Daintree in FNQ:
UPDATE – while up in FNQ we were able to colaborate with Jsun from www.mushroaming.wordpress.com.au to find some of these FNQ Chants at a similar location/habitat. Taste was peppery and meaty, very impressive – DNA results pending. At this stage as we don’t know the actual ID of this species we advise against consumption although no poisonous chants have been recorded.
Jsun has uploaded some great info at the following link:
https://mushroaming.wordpress.com/2016/08/06/cantharellus-sp-tropics/
Here are the results of its sequence run through BLASTn – the highest coverage was still pretty low so results aren’t more than indicative:
5
Look good. Any flavour review coming your way from the finder?
I think these were found in a Nat Park so left in situ 😉