It is an amazing life enriching hobby just learning about them, I know many mycology obsessed people who do it for no other reason that amazing pictures and getting out in the woods and fields just after it has been raining.
I like to eat them for food and medicine and educational entertainment in regular life and use them for bushcrafting purposes like tinder and first aid in what i wish was my real life.
Golden rule is you do not eat unless you are sure, when you are sure it is even better if people you consider to be the people you learn from are also sure, but you have to speak that way in regards to being a beginner, there are fungi you can recognise immediately and never ever get wrong and will never ever forget without any help like if you have ever held a real chanterelle and a false chanterelle at the same time you will never mix them up again, same goes for the morel, once you have held a true morel and seen and held a false morel together the difference is clear to even the touch senses, but trying to distinguish from agreed on character trait and descriptions from books is very hard especially when starting out, first thing needed is an understanding of the wordage and phraseology or glossary of mycology and what they mean by a say a partially attached veil or an annulus of tissue or what is being described by saying the cap of the type of fungi you are hunting is hygrophanous, it seems never ending and baffling at first but once you get some the glossary and understand the visual actual of what is being described the books become a lot more useful, best way is getting out in good conditions with someone who teaches it
My apologies for the ramble, i might have mentioned somewhere up thread the passion bit
