Enoki

Flammulina velutipes

Physalacriaceae

The needle mushroom of hot-pot — food first, with a modest winter immune tradition in East Asia.

Everyday cultivated edible. Wild velvet-shank is the same species, stockier and orange.

Parts used: Fruiting body
Traditional notes: Nourishing winter soups · Recovery foods
Grow · USDA 6b: Cool-loving saprophyte A bottle kit. Home wild-style culture is colder than oyster. In work: Jan · Feb · Mar · Oct · Nov · Dec
Harvest: When needles are long and caps still tiny, before they splay.

The needle grocery form is a cold, CO2-rich bag crop. Buy a kit.
Wild velvet-shank is a winter stump mushroom — different look, same species cluster.
Cook thoroughly. This is food, not a raw garnish.

Safety

Raw packaged enoki Uncertain wild lookalikes

Lore

The wild winter mushroom is a tawny cap on a short stem; the supermarket needle is the same species grown in the dark and bottled like a bouquet. Japanese farmers learned that trick. The Latin Flammulina means little flame, which the wild one still is.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.