A beacon of red in a wintery wonderland; late in the season of sleep, this fungus is such a welcome site.
Scarlet Elf Cup // Sarcoscypha austriaca
It is hard to distinguish without a microscope from Ruby Elf Cup // Sarcocypha coccinea so the following information covers both species.
It has another name. Moss rose. Which I absolutely love. Can you see why?
Identification
Usually found in mid winter through to early spring.
Cup to disk shaped. It has a short little root-like stem which is usually covered in soil.
The inside/topside is a vivid red and smooth, like Santa lost a button. The underside is paler, almost silvery and rough.
Delicate and easily ripped or broken.
They are found on fallen/rotting wood, under deciduous trees, in damp locations.
With not much growing or showing at that time of year, they are quite an easy one to find and identify.
Fruiting numbers can be quite numerous.
Occasionally you might get the joy of finding an orange coloured scarlet elf cup like the one above. This is a colour variant and can be used in the exact same way. It does make it look similar to another species however, the picture below shows the equally beautiful orange peel fungus. Luckily it is also considered edible and doesn't normally grow at the same time of year so it's nothing to worry about too much. It is good to study the subtle differences anyway to help get your eye in. The young little cups are very spherical, unlike the petal shapes of the orange peel fungus.
Orange peel fungus // Aleuria aurantia
Actual orange peel is slow to degrade and can occasionally confuse the woodland walker with it's bright colour. Imagine now that the walker is a forager and knows about the orange peel fungus. What an exciting prospect.... Which one might it be?! I know which one I'd rather find!
Uses
This hasn't always been thought of as edible. Your sources might even suggest it is mildly toxic. However, times they are a changing. I join many foragers by eating a few of these every year with no adverse effects.
A recent trend seems to be using scarlet elf cup as a wild blusher and lipstick.
Processing and Cooking
Being a ground dweller, you may need to clean this one up a bit.
You can eat them raw and they make excellent little wild canapé cups. If you decide to cook them the good news is that it keeps its beautiful colour!
They haven't got a massive amount of flavour, maybe a gentle earthy flavour like beetroot.
They can be used to substitute shop bought varieties like in my Thai curry.
I added some raw cups diced to sauerkraut and they kept their colour! To be honest they didn't add a massive amount of flavour, despite looking like chilli flakes!
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