Pleurotus eryngii
The king oyster is a thick-stemmed oyster mushroom that in the wild lives on the dead and dying roots of sea holly relatives (Eryngium) and giant fennel (Ferula) in dry Mediterranean and steppe grassland. Unlike most oyster mushrooms it does not grow on standing wood, and it fruits after autumn and spring rains. In cultivation it is grown on supplemented hardwood sawdust and wants a warm spawn run, then a cool, humid, well-ventilated fruiting room.
Where it grows wild
A weak parasite and saprotroph on the roots and root crowns of plants in the carrot family, mainly Eryngium campestre and other Eryngium species; varieties grow on Ferula communis, Ferula tingitana, Thapsia and other umbellifers. It fruits at ground level from the buried roots in dry, open grassland, garrigue, steppe and field edges. It is also recorded as trapping nematodes for extra nutrition.
Mostly lowland to middle elevations. The 32 records with an elevation span 18–2045 m (median 400 m); the weighted climate sites sit at about 970–1640 m on the Spanish meseta and in the Alps.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 3.0 licence, unmodified.