Caesar's mushroom (Amanita caesarea): where and when it grows
The queen. Orange as a golden egg, scarce and ever more sought after.
The caesar's mushroom (Amanita caesarea) comes out from August to October, at its best in September, in woods of holm oak, cork oak, Pyrenean oak, sweet chestnut, downy oak, Portuguese oak, sessile oak and pedunculate oak, from low ground up to the middle mountains. It is also known as Caesar's amanita.
See where it is ready this week
Right now, the best day forecast for Caesar's mushrooms is 11 September.
Caesar's mushroom is the most coveted mushroom of the holm oak and chestnut woods on the acid soils of western and central Spain. It comes up with the first heavy rains of late summer, while the ground is still warm, and disappears as soon as the cold bites.
It is rare, which is why the people who know where it grows keep quiet. micomapa will not tell you the spot, but it will tell you the week: when the August or September rain has fallen on still-warm soil in a wood of holm oaks, cork oaks or chestnuts.
What it needs to come out
First, a generous rain, the kind that soaks down to the roots. Then patience: it usually appears after two or three weeks, as long as the soil holds on to that moisture and stays warm, with the summer heat still in it. If a frost, too much water or a drying wind comes in between, the flush is aborted and never shows.
Where to look
It comes out in woods of holm oak, cork oak, Pyrenean oak, sweet chestnut, downy oak, Portuguese oak, sessile oak and pedunculate oak, from low ground up to the middle mountains, always on acid soils.
Caesar's mushrooms by province (in Spanish)
- Caesar's mushrooms in Barcelona · 238 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in Burgos · 323 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in Girona · 195 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in Huesca · 196 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in La Rioja · 102 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in León · 494 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in Lleida · 173 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in Lugo · 431 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in Navarra · 242 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in Ourense · 255 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in Segovia · 90 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in Soria · 167 zones with habitat
- Caesar's mushrooms in Teruel · 185 zones with habitat
How the forest is doing this week
- Asleep 3078 zones
- Low 13 zones
Forecast of 11 September, updated every day.
Mushrooms that share its woods
- Bronze bolete: The bolete of the holm oak woods: dark, stout and firm-fleshed. The most prized of its family.
- Gurumelo: The mushroom of the south-western spring. It breaks out of the ground like a white stone and smells of wet earth.
- Chanterelle: Yellow, fragrant and loyal: once it finds its corner, it comes back every year.
- Black trumpet: Black, invisible in the leaf litter and delicious. Those who can see it would not swap it for anything.