Fungi ID help

[Pandabean]

In the album below of mine (testing out this facebook sharing thing) there are 2 pics of a fungi that I found on a path while out for a walk yesterday. Just wondering if anyone can help with ID'ing it?

The closest I can think of is some kind of Boletus....

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150232528722979.327843.611672978&l=b389796acd

 

[Mafro]

Its hard to tell from a photo of just its cap. Photos of the underside showing the pores, and the stem would have been helpful. Also a size guide.
Also make a note of under what conditions its growing, what trees it was under.

I would put in in the suillus genus, which is a member of the bolete family, but which one I couldn't tell you.

 

[Pandabean]

Thanks Mafro, I think I should actually start doing that...something I should have learned as a Geologist but forgotten.
How is best to take a photo of the underside without uprooting the thing?

These two were in the grassy patch in the middle of a landy track, some tall grass, trees nearby were a form of spruce.

 

[toilet digger]

like mafro says its hard to ID without seeing the gills, spores and whether it has a ring and/or volva.
but for my money its either russula paludosa (edible) or russula rosea (not so palatable) .

 

[toilet digger]

oh and i wouldn't worry too much about pulling them up.
what you see is just the fruiting body, the rest of the fungus is below ground or in a tree.
much like taking an apple off a tree. hope this helps.

 

[Pandabean]

Cheers. Will do that next time.

If the rest of the fungus is below ground/in a tree...how does that work for say birch polypore or turkey tail, which seems entirely on the outside. As you can tell I dont know alot about fungi.

 

[Barn Owl]

looks like a Pine Bolete but have to say i don't trust my own id of fungi.

 

[toilet digger]

the same applies with polypores, just another fruiting body.
although some bracket fungus's are perennial, meaning that the fruiting body remains over winter and new growth continues the following season.
trametes versicolor is a good example.
i do think a lot of people get anxious about fungus and its potential toxicity, but there are only 6 species that can potentially kill you and thats out of 100s in britain.
i always find that 2 ID books help (any illustrations / photos may typify potential variations in colour and form)
and learn the books keys.
hope this helps.

 

[Nonsuch]

The sickener (Russula emetica) maybe? Depends if it has gills or pores underneath.

 

[Geoff Dann]

I would put in in the suillus genus, which is a member of the bolete family, but which one I couldn't tell you.

I'd go along with this as a best guess also. Doesn't look like a Russula to me, but we need to see the underside to be certain. Suillus luteus or granulatus, I think.

 

[Geoff Dann]

oh and i wouldn't worry too much about pulling them up.
what you see is just the fruiting body, the rest of the fungus is below ground or in a tree.
much like taking an apple off a tree. hope this helps.

Yes and no. What if what you pull up happens to be rare/protected, and there's only one of them? What if it is Amanita echinocephala, known as "the solitary amanita" for its habit of fruiting isolated single mushrooms?

Most of the time it doesn't matter so much, especially if there's lots of them, but as a policy I do not uproot mushrooms if there's only one or two, especially if I don't know what they are. You can get a look at the underside by breaking off a small part of the cap in these cases.

 

[Geoff Dann]

i do think a lot of people get anxious about fungus and its potential toxicity, but there are only 6 species that can potentially kill you and thats out of 100s in britain.

Hmmm.... Some of those six are rather variable and others are very easily confused with things that are edible. And we don't know that there only six, either. The edibility/toxicity of the vast majority of fungi is unknown. There are, for example, hundreds of British species of Cortinarius, some of which are known to be deadly, several to be seriously poisonous, one known to be edible and the rest could be either edible, deadly, or anything inbetween. Who is going to be the guinea-pig? On top of that they are very tricky to identify and therefore potentially under-reported rather than being as rare as the records suggest they are.

So there's two sides to this story, I think. The majority of fatal mushroom poisonings, worldwide and in the UK, are the result of just two species: the Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) and the Destroying Angel (A. virosa). The other two which regularly kill people are Galerina marginata and Clitocybe rivulosa. In all these cases there is a combination of deadly poison and serious possibility of confusion with something commonly eaten. But I think if people started to get the idea that once they've learned to avoid these species then they are pretty much safe to experiment then they are likely to end up in serious trouble of one sort or another.