Hey, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide.

I'm Nate Hedgy.

A few months ago, one of our producers, Marina Hanke, found herself on a field trip to the New York

State Museum in Albany.

Testing, testing, testing, one, two, testing, testing.

It's a building of sharp edges and gray concrete gives very strong Jetson's vibes.

But what Marina was there to see is about as far from concrete as you're going to get.

I mean, I feel like the best way to describe it is like a cabinet of curiosities of mushrooms right here.

I mean, these are the most mushrooms I've maybe seen in my life right now.

Yeah. of mushrooms right here. I mean, these are the most mushrooms I've maybe seen in my life right now. Mushrooms.

This is called fistio-line, a hepatica, which the common name is the beef steak mushroom.

It gets that name because when you see it in the forest, it really does look like this piece of meat.

And when you slice it and even exudes like a reddish liquid.

No.

And it's edible and it tastes incredible.

And so you can eat it.

You can eat it.

This is Patty Kachian, New York State Museum's curator of mycology.

That's the study of fungi.

She and Marina were standing in front of a big glass cabinet full of wax sculptures, like a Madame Tussaud's, but for mushrooms.

I mean, can you like describe, like, what is the texture of that cap? Yeah, so we would just,

in mycological terms, we would say that's like cerebriform. What is that?

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