Two 'Shrooms for ident.

[Ogri the trog]

Hi Guys and Gals,
Just been for a stroll down our field and saw these.

Left side of photo are growing on an old rotting stump, maybe hawthorn, one upturned to see the scales. I'm guessing at either Velvet Shank, Honey Fungus or Sulphur Tuft.

Right side (on the yellow frisbee) were growing in the open but close to a conifer wood (as were the first lot), singly, but the veil fragments and loose ring around the top of the stem again confuse me in absolute indentity. Another guess at Parasol Mushroom, but could equally be False Death Cap.

I have no intention of eating the examples but it would be good to know for certain what they are....

Any thoughts.

TIA

Ogri the trog

 

[dave k]

Ones on the right look like a type of parasol's.. I don't think it's a shaggy, as these have bits falling off them - you can brush them with your hand, and the skin will come off.

Looks like a nice couple of examples -the ones that are still ball-shaped are the best eaters btw. You have to be carefull picking very small ones,as they look identical in their early states as the really bad shrooms (destroying angel, etc).. Best pick them when they have a stem, as you can tell them apart.

Not sure of the other ones though..

 

[xylaria]

How to identify mushrooms.

Firstly learn what the poisonous ones look like. There are literally thousands of fungi that grow in Britain very few of them can kill. Cooper Johnson guide to poisonous plants lists some of the harmful fungi and all the lethal ones. Not knowing what these look like is like going mountaineering without knowing what lenticular cloud looks like.

The next bit to know is the importance of gills colour/shape and spore colour. Most serious mistakes are due to people not respecting this. Fungi like plants are split into Families and the criteria for each family is based usually based on gill and spore colour. The problem I find is that basic guides don't explain this and comprehensive guides have poor edibility advice and are too difficult for alot of people to use. To explain these differences would take a extensive essay, where I know it can explained much clearer by an expert in situ with you actually looking at a mushroom.

Spore colour is found by making a spore print. which is you basically cut the stipe off and then lay it face down on a piece of paper and then wait twelve or so hours. The brown mushrooms you show in the piccy i would lay white paper as the spore print is brown, if they were Honey fungus i would lay them on black paper as the spore print is white. I wasn't sure of what family a mushroom was I lay it on both. Both Cortinariaceae and Strophariaceae have being consumed instead of honey fungus. They both have brown spores and the gills are the wrong shape.

Mycology is a very extensive subject. The other mushroom you show is as the previous posting said a lepiota which as a family do bare a resemblance to amantias as they both have rings. The Amantias contain some of the real bad guys. Lepiotas differ from Amantias by factors other than gill and spore colour (they are both white!). Amantias grow from a soft bag like structure called a volva where as lepiota don't. Lepiota feel more fragile and soft generally but again this a feature that you feel for you self, and cant be understood fully without seeing and feeling both amantias and lepiotas. Amantias cant poison by handling alone they have to be ingested. The smaller Lepiota are poisonous and I wouldn't advice that someone inexperienced eats this from this group unless they are sure.

I have picked, studied and eaten mushrooms for twenty years. I dont eat wild mushrooms that are immature,(buttons or gills not showing true colour) for the same reasons I dont eat the from carrot family. I cant safely tell what it is. But I do take educated risks as do mountaineers. I hope I have encouraged you as knowledge is the most important bushcraft tool.

 

[Ogri the trog]

Wow, thanks Xylaria.
I had thought that if they were massively poisonous or exeptionally flavoursome - I would have got a torrent of posts. As it stands, it would appear to need some more study. I can't positively indentify them from the books that I have so I'll have to pop into the local library to see what they have. Failing that, do you reccommend the Cooper Johnson book for a beginner or am I better off using the library or an occasional meetup with an experienced Mycologist (Can't say I've ever met one, so the likelyhood is a bit slim).

Thanks for the pointers about the spore prints, though finding books on these might be even harder than good ones about fungi in general.

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[gregorach]

The ones on the right definitely look like parasols.

A good trick for spore prints is to lay the stipe on a piece of clean glass, and then you can lay that over either white or black paper to see the spore colour.

 

[dave k]

the only thing about spore prints is that

1) You can't do them in the field
2) 12-24 hours later after picking the 'shroom' is past it's best for eating..

Sort of a no-win situation!

 

[dommyracer]

I have tried to invest as much time as possible in being able to positively identify (with certainty) a few common species of good edible mushrooms.

Now I am confident in this, I ignore everything else on the basis that its either poisonous or tastes like crap.

 

[gregorach]

the only thing about spore prints is that

1) You can't do them in the field
2) 12-24 hours later after picking the 'shroom' is past it's best for eating..

Sort of a no-win situation!

Yeah, but it helps you learn and become more confident in your identification. The big problem is that the mushrooms you find never look like the ones in the books. But once you've positively identified a few specimens, you can then recognise them better in future.

 

[xylaria]

Gregorach and Dommyracer you are both right. After some study most people can safely identify some mushrooms for the pot. I am a little worried by people who underestimate what I mean by some study. I also eat wild plants which requires the same skills as mushroom collecting. Skills that can be overlooked by the 'i eat squirrils for breakfast lunch and tea' people

Ogri:I am glad you found my advice useful. What can be learned from books is not the same as what can be learned from experience. Cooper Johnson is a general toxicology book for plants and fungi, and will you tell most of the information that should never be learned from experience. Watching a TV program where some chef is making cousselot of road-kill with wild chervil and sauted morels looks great. But what they don't show is the fleas, tics, the TB check, how close the chervil is to fine leaved water dropdead, and that uncooked morels are not very good for you. I like collecting wild foods and I don't like being ill, I have always used cooper johnson to cross reference books like food for free. That way I can make informed decisions before I collect. I dont need to find out by experience that if you eat Fat Hen daily in large quanties you can get a hideous rash because some starving Polish did after ww2, and so I don't have to.

I appriceate that a lot of people don't learn well from books and cooper johnson is very scientific. Every mycologist I know goes out with a dog eared favourite field guide which has at least 2000+ species (these do have info on spore prints). The decrepid french granny that can go without a guide can do so because they learned the language of foraging when they were a child and now have a lifetime of experience behind them. My nine year old daughter can tell the difference between a destroying angel and citrina without a book but she not arrogant enough to bet her life on it. The TV programme Jimmy's farm where he went on one lesson with a mycologist and then went out on his own picked a honey fungus, which was then tasted raw by someone even dumber than he was, provided a very good lesson. You cant learn a language in day and Mother Nature does not tolerate fools.

 

[Moonraker]

Gregorach and Dommyracer you are both right. After some study most people can safely identify some mushrooms for the pot. I am a little worried by people who underestimate what I mean by some study. I also eat wild plants which requires the same skills as mushroom collecting. Skills that can be overlooked by the 'i eat squirrils for breakfast lunch and tea' people

Ogri:I am glad you found my advice useful. What can be learned from books is not the same as what can be learned from experience. Cooper Johnson is a general toxicology book for plants and fungi, and will you tell most of the information that should never be learned from experience. Watching a TV program where some chef is making cousselot of road-kill with wild chervil and sauted morels looks great. But what they don't show is the fleas, tics, the TB check, how close the chervil is to fine leaved water dropdead, and that uncooked morels are not very good for you. I like collecting wild foods and I don't like being ill, I have always used cooper johnson to cross reference books like food for free. That way I can make informed decisions before I collect. I dont need to find out by experience that if you eat Fat Hen daily in large quanties you can get a hideous rash because some starving Polish did after ww2, and so I don't have to.

I appriceate that a lot of people don't learn well from books and cooper johnson is very scientific. Every mycologist I know goes out with a dog eared favourite field guide which has at least 2000+ species (these do have info on spore prints). The decrepid french granny that can go without a guide can do so because they learned the language of foraging when they were a child and now have a lifetime of experience behind them. My nine year old daughter can tell the difference between a destroying angel and citrina without a book but she not arrogant enough to bet her life on it. The TV programme Jimmy's farm where he went on one lesson with a mycologist and then went out on his own picked a honey fungus, which was then tasted raw by someone even dumber than he was, provided a very good lesson. You cant learn a language in day and Mother Nature does not tolerate fools.

I totally agree with you on the need to be aware of what you are doing when collecting and eating wild food especially fungi and plants. I have always said that we need to treat plants with the same respect people tend to give to fungi. And whole heartily endorse the recommendation for 'Poisonous Plants and Fungi: An Illustrated Guide' by Cooper and Johnson as I have done so before. The latest edition which is rather more geared towards the lay person but with just as much information and in fact more photos than the original is a must for anyone seriously considering foraging in the UK, especially as it is available for just over a tenner on Amazon. Full details of the actual book referred to is;

'Poisonous Plants and Fungi: An Illustrated Guide'

by M.R. Cooper, A.W. Johnson and E. Dauncey
Publisher: The Stationary Office: 2nd edition, 2003
Description A new edition of the important and well-received illustrated guide to poisonous plants and fungi, originally published in 1988.
The revision includes more than 100 new colour photographs, coverage of skin damage caused by contact with plants, greater emphasis on garden and house plants, a section on poisonous algae, and details of where to obtain advice if poisoning is suspected.
185pp. 110 colour photographs. Paperback.
ISBN 0 11 702861 4

The direct link to the book on Amazon.co.uk

Having said that, I would say that it is perfectly possible to go out and pick a limited range of the top edible mushrooms without such in depth knowledge. The key is to learn from someone who knows (fungi forays are a good start) and stick to these. Learning about fungi is very rewarding in itself, as is building a wide knowledge of wild flora and fauna generally. But that should no preclude people from enjoying the simple delights of 'picking a few for the pot' in safety. Good guide books can help especially a decent field guide and if you want to venture into the wider field of fungi then I would follow the route suggested by xylaria. I would also bare in mind that any book is only a guide and that you can never be certain as to how any one individual will react to any one plant and always start off with small amounts even when you are sure on identification.

I think it is an important point that xylaria makes about being wary of small 'parasol type mushrooms as some are poisonous , even deadly poisonous in the case of Lepiota subincarnata. So, whilst the Parasol Mushroom (Macrolepiota procera var. procera), once identified is fairly easy to recognise, other smaller, similar looking fungi should be treated with caution.

 

[Fred]

"Publisher: The Stationary Office: 2nd edition, 2003"
- good to know the building's not moving, eh?

I prefer Roger Phillips' huge tome 'Mushrooms' which (after 25 years in print!) has just been re-published with extra species & new common names. About 1250 in all - BUT his photies are excellent and there's a great visual guide at the start for edibles, toxics & specifics like brackets...It's a bit smaller than the other Roger Phillips guides too, although about an inch thick. I got a signed 'Wild Food' too - used a recipe from this recently with beefsteak fungus (first time!) - bloody gorgeous! Best foray meal in a long time...

The info's all on the web too (for you electro-bushfolk with your gadgets...or to check when you get home...) but the pics are too small for me. Still, give you an idea of what the book's like, and it's free. See http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/

ISBN: 0330442376 for the new edition. Looks like you can get it for around 12 quid plus postage. Seems the old editions are about the same price.

As for field guides - I don't bother myself. I spend too long peering at little pictures or wading through dichotomous keys and getting lost in Latin...and I prefer to learn now, eat later...so I take what I can (if there are enough specimens not to jeopardise future generations and to fill my belly if edible).

Once back to base, I scrutinize until I get the ID. If I'm 100% certain it's edible (it has to be 100% for me - no taste tests or magic sixth sense here) I get to work in the kitchen. Then I make sure I use my knowledge when out & about in future. It keeps my books clean and saves my temper too...

By the way, I went on two forays with the same expert, and he turned his nose up at the beefsteak - I grabbed it quick and what a prize! He reckoned every 'hunter' has their top 10 edibles, and generally ignore edibility in others. They're really only in it to catalogue & discover new data with the odd meal as a reward, whereas I simply want to stuff my face!

Also, about sporeprints - sometimes the mushrooms have already made them in situ! Look at the area directly underneath the gills / pores without picking the things and you may see spore colour. I've seen it on caps growing under other caps, although you'll have to look close if you want to distinguish pink from white!

Handy hint 2: when making sporeprints place the cap with stipe removed on half white half black surface. That way you won't miss any spore colouring.

Not checked it out yet, but apparently this book "Mushrooming Without Fear" by Alexander Schwab ISBN: 1873674880 describes ALL you need to know about the tasty edibles so you'll be in no doubt whatsoever about the edibles, and dispose of the others. At least that's what it claims. I might get it soon but spent too much this month...

Phew! Hope this helps along with the other excellent advice on this thread!

Cheers & good hunting
Fred

 

[Ogri the trog]

Jeez, thanks guys,
I already have a few guides, Peter Jordan's "Mushroom Pickers Foolproof Field Guide" - good photos but not the type of book I'd want to tote around in the damp weather.
The Country Life Guide to Edible and Medicinal Plants of Britain and Northern Eurpoe, Edmund Launert, more pocket friendly, has a section on fungi but the illustrations are drawings - which I find OK if you're happy with what you have found and want to learn a bit more about its properties, but not overly helpfull in actual indentification.
Also have the Food for Free pocket version.

It would seem that if I really want to learn a bit more, then a trip over to amazon.com is on the cards.

Thanks for your answers everyone, I really appreciate the time it must have taken to compile the information. :You_Rock_

Ogri the trog