Cantharellus platyphyllus

A red chanterelle of African woodland

Cantharellus platyphyllus is a chanterelle of tropical African woodland. Its red to orange cap and broad, widely spaced yellow folds are useful group characters in the field. They are not a field-safe identification: other African chanterelles vary in colour and fold shape, and this species is hard to separate from C. symoensii without microscopic spore characters.

The fungus lives in association with woodland trees, mostly in the miombo woodland of southern-central Africa and in gallery or transition forest toward open woodland. It is an ectomycorrhizal species, so its fruiting bodies depend on the trees it partners with and on the rains.

Name and classification

The species was described by Heinemann in 1966. A 2012 molecular study placed the African chanterelles in a separate genus, Afrocantharellus, and made the combination Afrocantharellus platyphyllus. The current EFTA account for tropical Africa treats that group as a subgenus again and uses Cantharellus platyphyllus, which is the name used here. Afrocantharellus platyphyllus is kept only as a former combination.

Names that need care include Cantharellus cyanescens and C. platyphyllus subsp. bojeriensis. EFTA lists these as synonyms or forms. The 2012 paper keeps the blue-tinged cyanescens form as a separate form within the species. A historical record under one of these names is not an independent species record until the underlying specimen or determination is checked.

Where it is recorded

Country-level records include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Tanzania and Benin, with secondary records in Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Nigeria and Madagascar. EFTA's wider known range also includes Gabon, Mozambique, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe. These are literature and checklist records, not abundance estimates, and older reports are sometimes filed under synonyms or misapplied names.

More precise records exist. The type collection was made at Elisabethville, now Lubumbashi, in 1932. The 2012 paper lists Tanzanian specimens from Kisarawe in the Coast region and Madibira forest in Iringa region, with coordinates, and from the SUA forest reserve in Morogoro region, where the published longitude is invalid. The map in this entry uses only the coordinates the source supplies.

Season and habitat

Visible fruiting bodies are seasonal and depend on rainfall. Tropical African sources place chanterelle fruiting and collection in the rainy season. A Haut-Katanga synthesis reports that chanterelle production peaks from January to April, and it names C. platyphyllus among the heavily eaten and sold species. The timing differs by locality and by forest type, so the defensible statement is rainy-season fruiting, with timing that varies by locality.

The best quantified productivity evidence pools C. platyphyllus with C. symoensii, so it cannot be read as a figure for this species alone.

Local food use

Local communities in parts of tropical Africa collect and eat this chanterelle, and it is sold in local markets. The 2017 Haut-Katanga guide describes it as an edible, traded chanterelle of miombo woodland. A 2016 study from Burundi and Rwanda reports chanterelles as an important food and market group in the rainy season, though it discusses several taxa together. A 2023 report from Mozambique describes local harvest and sale of the species under the Lomwe name Eyukuli.

The sources read do not record a traditional recipe, a preparation method, or a cooking practice specific to this species. The food use is documented as harvesting, eating and selling, not as a set of recipes.

Safety and identification

The food-use evidence supports documenting how the species is eaten locally. It does not establish that the species is safe for every person or every specimen, it does not establish a preparation rule, and it does not rule out confusion with other fungi. The supplied index classifies the historical edible claims and checklist entries as not independently assessed.

Do not identify or eat a wild chanterelle from a photograph or from this page. Identification of African chanterelles depends on spore characters, and a specialist should confirm any specimen before it is eaten.

Open questions

No species-specific toxicology study was found in the sources read, and no market volume for this species alone is recorded. The next checks are the primary publications behind the food-use claims, the name used for the species in each local market, and reference photographs whose reuse rights have been cleared.