The Ultimate "What is this Fungi?" thread.

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Also wanted to mention that I find alot of mushroom species just in shady parts of a garden that has alot of woodchips as mulch. At my work we have wood chip mulch and there must be at least 5-8 different fungi species growing everywhere!
 
Hi folks I found this beautiful specimen on an ash tree by my house the other day, can sombody confirm that it is a dryads saddle??

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many thanks


Craig
 
I think i've seen it said if the stalk sits in a cup or sheath at the bottom then the rule of thumb if POISONUS but for those musharooms that don't have obvious colourings and look like jo musharoom but with a brownish tint like the below, what should I look for?

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This looks suspiciously like a liberty cap to me or better known as a "magic mushroom."

Thats about the only fungi I can identify, sign of a miss spent youth I suppose :-)
 
Could I request that people upload via another site and not photobucket please. There are other sites like image shack that don't delete your pics after a short time.
There are some great threads that are ruined for me by not being able to see the photos as they have 'timed out'.
Atb Dave
 
This looks suspiciously like a liberty cap to me or better known as a "magic mushroom."

Thats about the only fungi I can identify, sign of a miss spent youth I suppose :-)

Eh? Which post are you replying to? It doesn't like like it was the one above yours anyway.
 
This looks suspiciously like a liberty cap to me or better known as a "magic mushroom."

Thats about the only fungi I can identify, sign of a miss spent youth I suppose :-)

That mushroom bears no resemblance whatsover to a liberty cap. :D

These are liberty caps, fairly easily identified by the bell-shaped caps with nipples on the top:

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It looks like Melanoleuca grammopodia to me.

http://www.mycodb.fr/fiche.php?genre=Melanoleuca&espece=grammopodia

cazycavey: If you hear any "rule of thumb" about the edibility/identification of mushrooms then ignore it, because it's dangerous nonsense. There aren't any rules of thumb - none that are any good, anyway. The rule is this: either you know exactly what it is, or you don't even consider eating it. :)
 
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Eh? Which post are you replying to? It doesn't like like it was the one above yours anyway.

Sorry, it was your original post, the first picture you started this with. I should have done the reply with quote I think. I am new to forums. didn;t realise how old the original one was.
 
If you hear any "rule of thumb" about the edibility/identification of mushrooms then ignore it, because it's dangerous nonsense. There aren't any rules of thumb - none that are any good, anyway. The rule is this: either you know exactly what it is, or you don't even consider eating it. :)

That is such a good bit of advice :approve:

I think, if you have no objections Geoff that I'll ask Admin to sticky that to the start of the thread, and maybe add it in to a new sticky at the top of flora and fauna.

cheers,
Toddy
 
That is such a good bit of advice :approve:

I think, if you have no objections Geoff that I'll ask Admin to sticky that to the start of the thread, and maybe add it in to a new sticky at the top of flora and fauna.

No objections from me. :)

And yes the same rule really ought to apply to foraging for plants, even though there's not quite such a high chance of making a dangerous mistake. I only recently got into plant foraging in a big way, and having familiarised myself with the really dangerous ones (hemlock and hemlock waterdropwort) I kind of let down my guard a bit and got complacent. "Not going to kill me, is it?" Well, no, but it might make my mouth burn for two days... It's all too easy to make a mistake, with both fungi and plants.

Geoff
 
Toddy, I'm going to second the idea about putting Geoff's comments somewhere prominent. I've posted something very similar on here once or twice myself, but there still seem to be plenty of people who don't realise that rules of thumb are dangerous.
 
Found these on a bimble yesterday... There might be a colour change (possibly) due to them growing from Yew.

Not in my basic book.

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And also on Yew... A member of the Oyster family maybe (but no gills?), another odd one!

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Found these on a bimble yesterday... There might be a colour change (possibly) due to them growing from Yew.

Not in my basic book.

Ought to be in your basic book....

This is what many mushroom foragers go to bed dreaming about. It's sulphur polypore or "Chicken of the woods". Tastes just like chicken and very edible unless it is growing on yew. It more often appears on oak or chestnut, but you shouldn't eat anything growing on yew because the fungi takes up the toxins in the tree. All parts of yew, apart from the red flesh of the berries, contain the alkaloid taxane, which causes heart failure if you ingest enough of it. How much toxin travels from the tree to the fungus is unclear, but there's no way I would personaly risk eating any COTW growing on yew.

All your pictures are of the same species, BTW, and the colour is normal. Isn't it beautiful?
 
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Thanks for that Dan...

I have chicken of the woods in the book, I've never actually seen some until now and the top two pictures threw me a bit. The shapes seem very different?

I'm also very new to fungi ID's (unless its the usual) and just like to look from a distance.
They sure are beautiful, I love it when you find something interesting :) I'm well aware of Yew myself, but appreciated that it was pointed out.

The fact they are growing from Yew makes it worse, as they smelled fantastic taking the pictures, even from a few feet away!

Regards, al.
 
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Thanks for that Dan...

My name is Geoff. "Dann" as a surname means "Danish invader", not "Daniel"... :)

I have chicken of the woods in the book, I've never actually seen some until now and the top two pictures threw me a bit. The shapes seem very different?

The "odd-shaped" ones are just normal young specimens. They start out like that and then turn into the more typical bracket-shaped things.

Geoff
 

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