The spines are decurrent, entire, numerous, short, ashy-white, generally equal in length.
The stem is firm, short, thick, even, whitish. The spores are pale yellow-brown, rough.
The bitter taste entirely leaves the plant when well cooked. It seems to delight in pine or chestnut woods. I found it in Emmanuel Thomas' woods, east of Salem, Ohio. It is found from September to November.
Hydnum erinaceum. Bull.
The Hedgehog Hydnum. Edible.
Plate XLVIII. Figure 363.—Hydnum Erinaceum.
Two-thirds natural size. The plant is entirely white when fresh.
Erinaceum, a hedgehog. Two to eight inches or more across. Tufts pendulous. White and yellowish-white becoming yellowish-brown; fleshy, elastic, tough, sometimes emarginate (broadly attached as if tuft were cut in two or sliced off where attached), a mass of latticed branches and fibrils. Spines one and a half inches to four inches long, crowded, straight, equal, pendulous. The stem is sometimes rudimentary. The spores are subglobose, white, plain, 5–6µ. Peck, 22 N. Y. Report.
The spines when just starting are like small papillæ, as will be seen in Figure 364. Figure 363 represents a very fine specimen found on the end of a beech log, on the Huntington Hills, near Chillicothe. It made a meal for three families. I have found several basketfuls of this species on this same log, within the past few years. I have also found on the same log large specimens of Hydnum corralloides.