Southern beefsteak fungus

What the fungus is

Fistulina antarctica is a wood-decay bracket fungus. It grows on living and dead wood and stumps of native Nothofagaceae trees in Patagonia. It is the most host-flexible of the three Patagonian Fistulina species, according to a 2021 phylogenetic study.

The catalogue lists the species as a research name, and the same study describes the genus with several Patagonian species. The species identity should be checked against that study before the name is relied on.

Food use in Patagonia

Local people in Patagonia have long eaten the fungus. The 2021 study records ancestral use by the Mapuche-Tehuelche people. The catalogue records it as a regional consumption item and as a fungus studied for food use.

A fieldwork study of wild edible fungi in Andean-Patagonian Nothofagus forests found the fungus fruiting under high canopy cover, and tending to appear where the wood is less degraded. The sources do not give preparation methods, quantities or cooking times.

Common names

In Spanish the fungus is called lengua de vaca, meaning cow tongue, and a Spanish-language encyclopedia also gives the name podredumbre castana. These are regional names, and the sources do not show how widely each is used.

Nutrition and cultivation research

A 2017 Argentine botany bulletin evaluated growth parameters for seven edible wild fungi from Nothofagus forests, including this species, with cultivation in mind. A 2022 study of the nutritional and bioactive profiles of Nothofagus-forest mushrooms exists, but the sources reviewed here show only its abstract, with no species-level figures for this fungus.

Conservation status

The IUCN Red List assessment rates the species as Least Concern. It describes the species as abundant across the Nothofagaceae range, with a stable population trend.

Limits of the record and safety

The catalogue states that the food-use record is not a comprehensive toxicity evaluation and asks that the local species concept be verified. The species identity and the eating records both depend on that check.

Confirm any identification with an experienced local forager or a mycologist before eating a wild fungus. This page gives no identification, edibility verdict or safe quantity for Fistulina antarctica.