We've been having some great mushroomy weather lately. This coming weekend I'm taking my wife and daughter chanterrell hunting. I'm getting this thread warmed up in case we find anything good. For anyone out there that enjoys mushroom hunting please post pics of any cool finds, edible or not.  :D :D :D

I love puffballs. You can fry them up and freeze them for later. Some can reach the size of soccer balls.

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Ive never actually found the giant puffballs. Ive found sculptured puffs which are decent but the giants supposedly taste the best of all puffballs.

Right now Im dealing with a pretty bad case of mushroom fever. Whenever I plan a trip to a known mushroom hunting spot I start the inevitable downward spiral of compulsive mushroom daydreaming. (CMD). I think theres a pill for it. Anyways, finding it difficult to concentrate I did the only rational thing. I looked up every possible thread on South Texas Mushroom Hunting I could find. For whatever reason it has only seemed to make things worse. Now Ive added about 10 species I am excited to find.  I'm definitely getting worse. Maybe looking up more mushrooms will help....

not a lot of flavour to giant puffballs. But sliced, egged and fried they're pretty good.

I've also got  a bag of dried giant puffball. Dry it and grind it and it makes a great addition to any sauce.

Found one last year.

Can't believe I only have a couple of pics on my phone.  We used to hunt morels, boletes, chanterells, and aminita. Often enough, where the red cap aminita grows, boletes are near by.

Hope you enjoy your hunt  :)

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I would be happy with any of the species you mentioned Walter.

My grandmother could pick wild muchrooms. I am terrified of them. About two years ago I went to a mushroom festival  in North Jersey. I figured I might be able to learn to safely identify at least a few species. I left there knowing a great deal more about mushrooms than I did but even more afraid to pick them on  my own. I envy you guys.

http://i.imgur.com/oY8Wf9K.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/rDGmyjE.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/yHwpQGG.jpg


Leucoagaricus americanus

http://i.imgur.com/ktVX0Ha.jpg

Strobilomyces strobilaceus (Old Man of the Woods) - My 7 year old daughter was the first to find one. We collected 3 of these beauties for cooking later.


http://i.imgur.com/Z6rGJn8.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/xhHf0s0.jpg


Lactarius indigo - A small brush against the gills of this mushroom will leech blue "ink" on your fingers.

http://i.imgur.com/jW5Ncpm.jpg

The color is more vivid in person.

The next two we found but I didn't get pics because my cameras macro mode was acting up.

http://i.imgur.com/tx0S9wN.jpg

Russula aeruginea (Grass Green Russula)

http://i.imgur.com/qvGC101.jpg

Armillaria tabescens (Ringless Honey Mushrooms) - Despite the name these aren't anything special in terms of taste.

We also found a scrambled egg slime mold, several types of polypores, an amanita that I couldn't identify by eye and many Clitocybe gibba which were quite common.

Next time I'll get more pictures. Not only was my camera acting up but it was sweltering in the forest. I must have sweat a gallon or more. Wow.... :o

Amanitas are dangerous. The 2 worst are Flay Agaric and Destroying Angel. I've been told a couple of them are edible, but are hard to ID. I leave them alone.

I dont harvest Amanitas for food but I am looking for a fly agaric to mark it off my list. Fly Agarics are considered a good edible if you boil them and change the water. They have ibotenic acid and muscarine which are toxic. Alternatively if you dry them the ibotenic acid is converted to muscimol which is a psychoactive alkaloid. (I've read some eat them fresh, there is a lot of differing opinions on this mushroom.) Some people report it is pleasant, others have very negative reports. It is a different chemical from the typical magic mushrooms and considered not as desireable or safe. I have no interest in it for that. But it's very pretty nonetheless.


http://i.imgur.com/35YlIaD.jpg

Fly Agaric (Amanita Muscaria)

http://i.imgur.com/Ccfpk1A.png

Amanita Phalloides (Death Cap)

http://i.imgur.com/cdRlvjA.jpg

Amanita Virosa (Destroying Angel)


These two deadly mushrooms along with a few others give Amanita their bad reputation. Mushroom hunters are better off not touching this genus unless they have the training/experience to do so safely.

One of the interesting things I discovered at the aforementioned Mushroom Festival was Lobster Mushrooms. Initially I thought they were a species of mushroom. I recently dicsovered that it's a fungus that grows on some species of mushroom. It turns them red and gives them a wonderful flavor very similar to Lobster.

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Lots 0f A muscaria and A  virosa here. There is or was a market for the A muscaria. It is used in the perfume industry :o
I found some lobsters in the White mtns. Read up on them and discovered that the fungus also attacks some poisonous mushrooms  >:( so I pitched them.

Ya, it does not neutralize the toxins. You have to be sure of the species it parasitized, which, with Russulas, is not always an easy task. Eat at your own risk.

After looking into this a little more it seems that the fungus is pretty specfic in the type of mushroom it parasitizes. Most people that have experience with them say poisonings are pretty much unknown, despite the overly cautious advice you see in many old mushroom hunting guides. That tends to happen a lot I've found in mycology. Old wives tales die hard I guess. I would try it if I found one.

You are a brave man!

It's easy to be brave online Walter.  ;)

even easier to be dead from eating the wrong mushroom.

Anything less than 100% certainty, is too much doubt for me.

Every successful mushroom hunter I know feels the same.

I've taken quite a few people mushroom hunting and the only two people to make me genuinely afraid were apparently immune to any natural fear of mushroom hunting. That's why  RM would actually be a very good mushroom hunter. Even trained mycologists feel it at times.
Training is very important but common sense is just as important.

So, this whole arc into Lobster mushrooms has me interested. I've been trying to find any reports of poisonings happening. So far nothing. This is a good start considering it is a gourmet mushroom shipped out to restaurants all over the world. If I still can't find anything after a few days I will see if I can get a hold of a mycologist and get their thoughts on it. 

Think I read the bad news concerning lobster musrooms   in "mushrooms demystified" . I'll take a look

walter wrote on Jul 5^th, 2017 at 5:34pm:

Think I read the bad news concerning lobster musrooms   in "mushrooms demystified" . I'll take a look

Pretty sure I've read it in several books, though I've not read that one yet. If you can actually find a specific case it references that would be helpful, thanks.  :)

IN National Audubon Society Field Guide To Mushrooms  it says that it is the lobster mushroom (Hypomyces lactifluorum) that causes unpalatable Lactarius and Russula into choice edibles. I f you cannot positively id the host,  avoid it because it could potentially parasitise a poisonous species.

Just saying  :)

Yep, thats where I read it as well. Problem is sometimes mushroom "lore" gets printed somewhere and then it just keeps getting referenced over and over with each new book, with little to any actual proof to back it up.

Another example of this is is Hygrocybe Conica, otherwise known as witches hat.

http://i.imgur.com/P0bbdow.jpg

This mushroom has had a reputation as being likely poisonous, even deadly poisonous, for years. To my knowledge, this reputation is based solely on one report stemming from somewhere in Asia in the early 1900's. 

The problem is it has been eaten on several occasions by people trying to get high. Nothing happened. Mushroom taxonomy is extremely difficult. Even today mushrooms are constantly being reclassified into different genera. So unless you have actual reports with evidence be cautious, but take it with a grain of salt as well.

My view is that I will always play it safe until I have reason to discount something as an urban legend. With the heavy volume of lobster mushrooms eaten around the world each year, there should be many detailed accounts of poisonings. So for now I will just have to keep looking.

So this question on lobster mushrooms led much further afield than I expected. I started out posting on a popular mushroom forum and recieved a few responses. Basically the answer was we don't know, we have heard the same thing but no one knows of it actually happening. 

I then asked a doctor of Mycology from the University of Oregon. He was unable to find any such cases of lobster mushrooms parasitizing toxic species and poisoning the person eating it. Though he did cite a few cases in the last 30 years of the fungus hypomyces lactifluorum (the fungus that parasitizes other species to become lobster mushrooms) causes minor issues. He did not specify what issues exactly. And this was with no mention of the host mushroom which is what we are wondering about here. He gave me a few leads to check and suggested I contact a Dr. Michael Beug.

Dr. Beug is the head of the Toxicology committee of the North American Mycological Association. He is well respected in his field and keeps detailed records on all reported mushroom poisonings in North America.  If anyone knows of a specific case of a lobster mushroom actually poisoning someone it would be him.

His response is as follows, "While said to be possible - I have no such cases. The one lobster poisoning in my database was due to an allergic reaction."

So it appears that no such poisoning is on record, ever. At least, the experts on the subject are unaware of any. Despite the countless numbers of lobster mushrooms eaten each year.  In researching this I read there was some evidence that the parasite fungus is extremely picky on the type of Russula or Lactarius it chooses which may account for a lack of any evidence of poisonings. I can say, for myself personally, I will be trying them. Without evidence of actual poisonings it seems that this very well could be a case of adding a warning to something just to cover all possibilites. Perhaps as a way of guarding against law suits. Just a thought. We will likely never know.

Morphy, I think you could  have ben a very good wildcrafter! NOW I am wondering why I did not take a spore print. Can you get one from a lobster   :noidea:

I am no expert on them, but I've read that the lobster fungus can drop white or clear spores but are very difficult to gather in a typical spore print. The host does not drop any spores though.

I'm pretty sure it's an Amanita. Maybe a Destroying Angel??

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Very possible. If you dig it up carefully it may have an egg like sac that the stipe (stem) is growing from. You need more info than a picture to reliably identify most mushrooms. It goes without saying that nothing featured on this thread should be eaten without it being identified by an expert. Mushroom poisoning is a very slow, painful death. And although there are relatively few deadly poisonous mushrooms, its safest to assume they are all deadly until you know otherwise.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, I worry some of our younger members will become too brave reading this thread. That being said, Aminita would be my first guess. I have a few guesses on the species but I will hold back unless I know.  There are something like 600 different species in the genus. I don't know most of them at a glance. One more reason I don't eat them.  :)

Not a destroying angel by the way.

"Could" be a ragveil or coker's Amanita.

http://i.imgur.com/XsfgP01.jpg

Clavariadelphus truncatus (Club Coral)

http://i.imgur.com/Iw0hesQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3SPXRol.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/wL3JRBd.jpg

Morchella elata  (Black Morels)

Gathered in Sierra Nevadas in a burned area. These were probably the best tasting morels I've ever had. The smell was unbelievable.

http://i.imgur.com/jSoij4O.jpg

Gyromitra esculenta (False Morel)

Potentially deadly for some while others feel no effects. It is considered one of the few dangerous morel look alikes.  Up close it looks nothing like a morel and is easy to differentiate by cutting the mushroom lengthwise. (Morels are always hollow from tip to stipe, false morels are not).

http://i.imgur.com/CJjLraj.jpg

Verpa Conica (Bell Morel)

http://i.imgur.com/qapRO50.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/xHhmoOI.jpg

Coprophilic mushroom, possibly P. semiovatus.

http://i.imgur.com/ZizTuQN.jpg

I believe this is Stereum Ostrea. It's one of my favorite finds. Very beautiful.

You have failed me for the last time Photobucket. Anyone have any suggestions for hosting pictures?

Have not been able to make a positive id on this one :( It is growing next to/under a poplar tree.
Any one know?

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It looks to be in the genus Coprinus. Possibly Coprinus Alopecia. Other possibilities include Xerophilus or Calyptratus.

http://i.imgur.com/7uClVCo.jpg

I believe this is a type of Reishi mushroom. It was pretty far gone when I found it but it's a dead ringer for other old Reishis. Reishis are one of the most well known and most studied of the medicinal mushrooms.

http://i.imgur.com/hYJnjf4.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/JmtLDFE.jpg

I believe this is an Agrocybe. Possibly Agrocybe molesta.

It's been raining pretty steady here in Houston for several days. Most of the following mushrooms I dont have id's for yet. I may never get them as I dont have a specimen to look at.

http://i.imgur.com/lmNsyEo.jpg

These were quite small but I love this picture. It has mushrooms in every stage of growth from pinning to maturity.

http://i.imgur.com/PTtaUJW.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/c3Wgspi.jpg

I originally thought this was some sort of cespitose Entolomas (many mushrooms growing from one center section). But Entolomas drop pink spores. These are at full maturity and no sign of pink on the gills.

http://i.imgur.com/LK6CMUT.jpg

Next stop, looking into the "Waxy caps". I'm sure a more experienced mushroom hunter could identify these on sight. I am stumped for now. I'll edit later if I find a good fit.

http://i.imgur.com/g3AGxRw.jpg

Plant Pot Dapperlings.  These are beautiful and strange mushrooms. 

http://i.imgur.com/ATXuaRQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/XFQ9qmL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ZZ7RLS7.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/hJT5TN8.jpg

This is my first time finding these.  These pictures show them in different stages of growth.

http://i.imgur.com/mXx49h5.jpg

This young mushroom was mostly hidden in the grass. I will come back to it in a few days and see if I can get an id.

http://i.imgur.com/oO62rbe.jpg

It was hiding a secret though. You can see pink gills. This mushroom is probably too young to drop spores so this isn't due to the spores. My first guess is Agaricus. Agaricus are the most well known of mushrooms. The button mushrooms you buy at the store are Agaricus.

http://i.imgur.com/jueqs9n.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/RwY1jT9.jpg

Earth Stars- These are also strange by normal mushroom standards. You can see their life cycle here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY6mwnRPiRU

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tGv4Is57Cs

http://i.imgur.com/XApjYq2.jpg

RandomSnail is Random.

excellent fungal pictures - can i make a suggestion. Find something of a known size and always carry it with you to include in any mushroom pictures so that we you can always tell the scale and size of the mushrooms.

It's one of the things that drives me to shouting at the television on occasion. When you watch nature programs about small animals or plants and at no point does the narrator give you a size or the cameraman include anything in the shot to give some kind of scale.

Those little/big yellow greeny ones are pretty unusuals. 

The ones by the cow pat - don't eat those :-)
Liberty caps. named after the french helmets they wore during the revolution.
Popular with hippies - hallucinogenic.
Be aware the toxin stays in the system for an extended period of time, leading to random flashes of hallucinations, often weeks after ingesting the mushroom. Very bloody dangerous.

In fact fungal toxins in general are difficult for our cleansing organs - liver & kidneys - to remove from our blood system.
It's why they are so lethal. Even a small amount of toxin from  a death cap or destroying angel will kill you as it just goes round and round in your blood stream gradually destroying your liver.
Usually by the time symptons show - you need an emergency liver transplant or you are dead.

I'm glad you like them CA. More to come.

As for the scale issues I actually thought about this yesterday. I found some very respectable mushrooms, possibly Green Spored Parasols, in two different places but did not get pictures because I wanted the viewer to see the scale of them for what they are.

I plan on going back today to do just that. Can't have a thread like this and leave those beauties out.  :)

http://i.imgur.com/U7R8LjK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/fMDb57x.jpg

This partial fairy ring is what I thought might be Green Spored Parasols as I drove by. They are not. They may belong to a group of mushrooms known as Lepiotoids.  Lepiotoids are a group of mushrooms containing many white spored, free gilled mushrooms that have partial veils that often, though not always, leave rings on the stem.

http://i.imgur.com/5t7PJV6.png

Here is a close up of one of the mushrooms in the fairy ring. The ring and the gills being free from contact with the stem are both apparent.

Houston is drowning in Lepiotoids/Lepiotas at the moment. The taxonomy is incredibly confusing. After 10 years in this hobby, I've only recently learned enough to realize how little I know.  Yay.  ::)

http://i.imgur.com/3b7SbFG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/vwA0h29.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rR7NM2o.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ri7vV3G.jpg

All of the above 4 pictures contain the same species of mushroom. The differences in macroscopic morphology at various stages of growth can be pretty extreme in mushrooms and only adds to an already difficult task in identification. Some genera are even more extreme.

http://i.imgur.com/LYc98F0.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/wdWhJr6.jpg

And a few more.

http://i.imgur.com/RODb9J4.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/2TXNLHv.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/VM3Hnr3.jpg

These look sort of like Galerina. But there's no evidence of rusty brown spores.

http://i.imgur.com/L4UqKhC.jpg

Here's another common mushroom to the Southern Texas area. This is a Bolete. Unlike other mushrooms, Boletes have pores or tubes from which the spores drop, instead of gills.

http://i.imgur.com/9ytQECG.jpg

Here are the pores. Some boletes are considered choice edible mushrooms. One of the most sought after is the King Bolete, Cep, or Porcini. All the same mushroom, but known by different names. Boletes can be difficult to pin down to a species. One rule of thumb is to avoid boletes that bruise blue.

Gilled mushrooms that bruise blue are often hallucinogenic. (Not always, so don't id them solely by this.) Where as with many blue bruising boletes the only trip you will have is to the bathroom or the hospital.


https://youtu.be/tomNmH-l7ZM

The color change is pretty dramatic. Take a look.

I saw this rather alien looking shroom at Grenloch Lake Park the other day while walking Benji. Any idea?

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Judging by the cap only I would say possibly a bolete (??) I'll take a look later and see if I get a lucky id. Maybe walter or someone has an idea?

Whenever possible if you can get a shot of the cap, shot from ground level and then carefully pull it up from about 3 inches undergroud and put it upside down for a shot of the underside.

Although it would be unlikely to get an id down to species, doing this we can sometimes get a genus at least. Whatever it is, its quite strange looking. Nice find!

the cap sure looks boleteish to me. quite a few slippery jacks and agaricus popping here. King and queen boletes should be popping right now in the white mnts.

   Something about mushrooms had puzzled me for quite a few years.  I know that mushrooms and such are parasites.  It doesn't surprise me to see them growing out of rich, wet soil or rotting logs.  But I could never understand why I would often see mushrooms growing out of the middle of dry, sandy trails. What on earth could possibly be sustaining them there?  At the aforementioned mushroom festival I got my answer.
    The mushroom is just a small part, the fruit, of the plant.  Most of the plant is buried.  Sometimes the root system of an individual mushroom can become huge, extending for miles.  The largest one yet discovered is somewhere out West... I can't remember exactly where.  It's literally the size of Rhode Island.

Good explanation. It's a common misunderstanding that the mushroom itself is the actual organism. A mushroom is actually the fruiting body of the real organism, the mycelium. Despite what some well intentioned people might tell you the organism is neither better off for you leaving it unpicked nor worse off for picking it.  It's no different than picking an apple from an apple tree. You might leave the apple there because it is so beautiful but eventually it will rot and decompose and the tree will never notice one way or another.

The only precaution you might take is cutting the stem with scissors or a knife so as not to disturb the mycelium. Other than that, it's up to you.

yep the single largest organism in the world is a honey fungus mycelium.
[edit]Italian chef Antonio Carluccio says it is delicious with spaghetti and red chilli. But to gardeners it is a menace that threatens their hedges, roses and rhododendrons.

The parasitic and apparently tasty honey fungus not only divides opinions; it is also widely seen as the largest living organism on Earth.

More precisely, a specific honey fungus measuring 2.4 miles (3.8 km) across in the Blue Mountains in Oregon is thought to be the largest living organism on Earth.[/edit]

Fungi are not necessarly parasites. Many of them are symbiotic with trees.
Supplying nutrients to the tree via it's roots and presumably gaining some benefit in turn.
Truffles are in this category.

Fungi are also NOT plants. They don't photosynthesise and some species actually trap and consume worms.

They also are possibly the most important class of organism on the planet. Without fungi nothing would ever break down or rot away.

Mushrooms are awwesome :-)

Now for homework go away and look up the total amazingness that are Slime Moulds !

so is that a billfold or a full size wallet ?
(pedantic ? moi ? lol)

Curious Aardvark wrote on Aug 28^th, 2017 at 7:22am:

so is that a billfold or a full size wallet ? (pedantic ? moi ? lol)

Not sure how it is in other places but most places in the US carry a pretty standard size wallet. In length it's just big enough to hold a credit card.
Not the best item for scale but I know I always have it with me.

And yes Mushrooms are completely amazing. And hunting for edible ones is a blast. I love the fact that as difficult as some mushrooms are to tell apart without anything less than a microscope and a dna test, there are still plenty of delicious first rate mushrooms that are safe to pick with a bare minimum of training.

It makes the hobby accessible to everyone. And the payoff is food, so hey... cant really beat that.  :D

   I would love to try mushroom hunting but Mom, rest her soul, ruined it for me.  As children she had us convinced that if we so much as touched a toadstool (poison mushroom) and put our fingers in our mouths even hours later we would drop dead on the spot.  We believed her.  Also she had a good collection of stories of horrible deaths caused by people attempting to eat wild mushrooms. I know why she did what she did.  We practically lived in the woods and ate a lot of what grew there while we played.  She may have saved our lives with her mushroom phobia but unfortunately it stayed with my sibs and I to this day.  I wish there was some local course given on the subject, like at our community college.  With all of the rain we've had in the past month it's a mushroom wonderland around here. 

Most places you can look into local mycological society meet ups. You living so close to the Pine Barrens I would bet you have something in your area. You sling and walk your dogs alot. Both great hobbies you could potentially combine with mushroom hunting. As long as you can trust your dogs not to eat everything they see.

As far as the fear, thats great. Thats a great foundation because it keeps you safe. If you ever do look into it you need not be overwhelmed by the incredible amount of unknown species.

You simply focus on 2-3 species that are easily identifiable and have a blast searching for those. As you learn, some of that fear naturally is replaced with respect and understanding. Meanwhile youre having some of the best steak and mushroom dinners youve ever had.  :)

At some point Ill post my testing "protocol" for species that Im sure about but new to trying. That and my own natural fear has helped keep me safe for 10 years now.

https://i.imgur.com/vcugGeS.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/SMa34PU.jpg

This will probably be my last Lepiotoid post.  I like this group of mushrooms but there are an almost endless amount growing in Houston at the moment. This one was too big not to post though.

Im finding that having too many mushrooms presents its own challenges. I dont have time to get id's on many of the mushrooms Ive posted. Too many and too much going on to do so.

https://i.imgur.com/8EarxVy.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/j6V12hZ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/FYffei6.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/HOVJeQT.jpg

At first I thought this could be a sun bleached Agaricus Agustus. Also known as The Prince. Which is considered a very good edible. However it does not have the unique sweet almond smell of that species. Too bad.

Today we went to Helsinki's botanical garden because it's very pretty and interesting but we went specifically today because they had a sieninäyttely (mushroom exhibition) where they had loads of mushroom species and a helpful star system to say how tasty they were. The ones in red with the double skull and crossbones were the not so tasty ones...

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Looks like a lot of fun. I recognize some. Especially those Fly Agarics... just laying there, laughing at me.  :(  Still havent found one yet!

So did you get a chance to try any?

No it was just looking and holding and smelling. I've had plenty before though. Been meaning to go out and get kantarelli (Chanterelle) to make into mushroom sauce. It's a pretty common thing in Finland and it tastes delicious!

Wow! Amazing display.  :)

fantastic - now that's a cool exhibition :thumb:

That is really neat.  I wish someone would put on something like that around me.

Yesterday we went for a walk and look what we found! The partial fairy ring we saw about half way round our walk and then the fly agaric is literally just below the window of our living room. We first saw it from the window then went to get a closer look. That's the first two photos.
Then today, as I was walking to the park, about 2 foot off the path, I saw a huge one and two small ones poking through a bit further off. Hand for scale :D

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Ah...that hurts. Youve wounded my soul Otter. You are very lucky. I really cant wait to find one. They are beautiful.  :P

Hey if you get a chance can you get a close up of the mushrooms making up the fairy ring? They look famaliar but I cant quite place it.

I'll be sure to :D

Thanks!  :)

Got those pictures along with another mushroom which popped up next to the first fly agaric underneath our widow and that something has had a nibble of :D

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Looks like youre blessed by the mushroom gods. May their shroomy goodness watch over and protect you. That area looks beautiful. If thats Finland, sign me up.

Those look similar to some Gomphidius/Chroogomphus species. Such an interesting looking mushroom. Possibly Paxillus as well. (Involutus, Velvet Roll Rim) hard to tell. Some show possible brown bruising which Involutus are known to do.

The newcomer is similar to other edible boletes Ive come across.
Looks like someone was definitely enjoying it.  :)

This isn't even every single mushroom we've seen on walks :D Where I've been slinging, I noticed a few very small ones and then there have been a few others hidden off in the grass. Been trying to find the time to actually go out properly as it definitely is the time to get out and get some mushrooms. I really want that chanterelle sauce...

Heres to hoping you have a good chanty season. Ive not found a single chanterelle this year.   :'(  Good luck.  :thumb:

We're dog sitting my girlfriend's parent's dogs and whilst out walking them we found all these. There were far more that I didn't stop and get photos of, these were just the most impressive specimens and some smaller ones nearby tht were just poking through. The inkcap (along with some of it's friends out of shot) is under a bush about a minutes walk from their front door :D

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Your Helsinki exhibition looks something like the mushroom festival I attended, kto.  First we took a tour outside and learned a bit about shrooms then we got to go in and eat many different mushroom recipes.  After that we purchased what ever we liked to take home. I should have take pictures.  I'll go back if they do it again. It was a good day.

That last mushroom, you may know, but for those not familiar its name is Coprinus Comatus. Also known as Shaggy Mane. Its a popular and well-liked edible mushroom.

Im searching for any look alikes it might be but cannot find any. Its considered one of the safer wild mushrooms to eat due to few if any dangerous lookalikes.  But of course no one should eat any mushroom based on id's from this thread.

The black rim around the bottom of the cap is characteristic of many Coprinus mushrooms that liquefy into a black ink like substance as they get older.

Great pictures. Looking forward to seeing what else is coming up in your area.  :)

You may have seen I lost the 2 inch ball bearing I recently got and spent a long time searching for it before finally finding it lodged in a rotten log. Whilst searching the area I also found all of these. Prepare for a picture spam.

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And some more...

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Wow you're sure having a good season Otter! That last one is beautiful. Ive seen that genus before but need to look up the name as it escapes me at the moment.

A buddy of mine back in Cali. stumbled upon these while deer hunting.

https://i.imgur.com/FDN21xy.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Qiy7eNZ.jpg

Of course he had to send me pics to make me jealous, which he did.  :D

In that same area last year we stumbled upon a several mile long trail on the edge of a burned section of forest along a rise that had endless amounts of Morels. We called it the Morel Trail. Thats where he found these.

You guys that know which mushrooms are edible really awe me.

To me, pretty much all mushrooms out in the wild fit into the category of, "If you eat it, your liver turns into goo, you then swell up and turn green, then die.  In great agony."

I know quite a few edible and medicinal plants but I have never had the courage to try mushrooms, even ones that I had identified, due to how many mimic the poisonous ones.

The only one I know to be safe and can identify well enough for me to feel safe is chanterelle. I think mushrooms and fungi are fascinating (hence the pictures) but I also have that healthy respect and fear :D I think I do need to take a proper mushroom course and properly learn some day. If even a third of the mushrooms I keep finding are edible I'll be eating like a king. Well a king that loves mushrooms anyway :D

When you are new to mushroom identification it's difficult to see obvious differences in the look-alikes. Once you understand how to see the differences for what they are it is no more dangerous than harvesting wild plants.

After that point the main danger is becoming too confident and branching out into more difficult to verify species. Personally there are so many safe to id species Ive never seen the appeal. 

Actually I've heard in America the majority of poisonings come from Asian immigrants who don't realize the green mushrooms they are picking here are death caps instead of the safe to pick mushrooms they have in their home country which look similar.

I wouldn't eat this but it is interesting

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Think you would need an xtra set of teeth to eat that!

Here is an indispensible tool for old timers. It's a gill detector ;)

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Example from New York. I know itr'd Sulphur shelf.

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Nice! I've only seen a few. Never eaten one. Supposed to taste like chicken hence another common name "chicken of the woods".

I know.It's the yellow part that's supposed to be edible. I've never had the nerve to try it though, at least without a professional to guide me.

Nice find.  :) Never tried one but Ive been told they are quite tasty.

So I've decided that due to my new location I'm going to try find some edibles.
I'd be confident useing a very good feild guide however I'm not finding much success locating one for my region .
The only think that seems to be easy to id and around me (not right now) is the black morel Morchella elata
I know that there is a few others however these are considered edible but not that tasty Armillaria luteobubalina

The honey mushrooms I've tried were definitely underwhelming. And they are easier for newer mushroom hunters to make a mistake on and pick the wrong species.

You can find some good books on mushroom hunting on amazon. Also I have two apps which are really helpful, Audubon Mushroom Guide and Myco Pro. Myco Pro is great because it has a quiz function where it shows you a mushroom and gives you 4 choices to choose from. It's the easiest way to start recognizing the charecteristics of different genera by eye.

Thanks morphy .
You always come through with good advice.
I'll have a look.
And I'll do my best to get you a few photos

Morphy wrote on Dec 13^th, 2017 at 9:27am:

The honey mushrooms I've tried were definitely underwhelming. And they are easier for newer mushroom hunters to make a mistake on and pick the wrong species. You can find some good books on mushroom hunting on amazon. Also I have two apps which are really helpful, Audubon Mushroom Guide and Myco Pro. Myco Pro is great because it has a quiz function where it shows you a mushroom and gives you 4 choices to choose from. It's the easiest way to start recognizing the charecteristics of different genera by eye.

like a visual key. great idea!

Glad to help.

I used to mentor a 14 year old young man and we would use the quiz function quite a bit. I'm positive he initially wanted to look at it to see magic mushrooms (thought he was being sneaky I guess) but having been a teen myself I figured he would start with the interest in magic mushrooms and get sucked into loving all mushrooms (that was me being sneaky). And he did, in fact, and became pretty darn good at identification.

Mushrooms are absolutely beautiful and myserious. I think you will enjoy finding and learning about them, just be careful. (I know you will, but have to say it.)

Here's some I found the other day.

https://i.imgur.com/UjCdH3M.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/voqJriK.jpg

I only saw the top from afar and immediately thought "Saffron Milkcap score!" But they are not unfortunately... smelled nice, but that's it.

What are your thoughts on 'Roger Phillips ' mushroom app, and "fungitron"

vetryan15 wrote on Dec 13^th, 2017 at 8:20pm:

What are your thoughts on 'Roger Phillips ' mushroom app, and "fungitron"

Rogers is ok. But Audubon and Myco Pro are better in my opinion. Having high quality pictures is important. So Rogers has considerably more quantity but much less quality, which becomes frustrating.

I looked into fungitron at one time but found it lacking. Was that the one that only has edible mushrooms or maybe it was missing the hallucinogens? I don't remember.

Anyways, worth a look. I do remember downloading then deleting both these apps fairly quickly so whatever the reasoning I was not impressed.

So, at the risk of being a bit wordy (never stopped me before), here's a quick rundown on getting the most out of the apps.

First search functions on apps are very limited and often don't work well. So best bet is to use the quiz and train yourself to see similarities within genera. Then you will pick up a mushroom and say, "Hey this looks like one of these 3 or 4 genera" Now you've narrowed it down by a very wide margin.

Secondly, take the mushroom and the spore print and check mykoweb, mushroom observer or one of the other sites on mushroom id.  Either click on the genus you think it is or just take the spore color and other major identifiers and start from there.

There are many more mushrooms you will find then will ever be in an app so the apps main purpose are to help you with the well known ones and provide you with a baseline where you can start understanding how they are grouped.

Thanks morphy,  I had downloaded those awhile back, abd had skimmed em. This subject makes me nervous,  so I never really dived into it as much as I wanted to.

Well I'm into the outdoors so I guess adding this to my knowledge is to my benefit . Magic mushrooms seem to have more info on the web for my region than plain edibles.
I'm currently laying in a hammock approx 7m off the ground in a small cork oak that for some reason is in the middle of an Australian forest. I have had a nice hike today and came across a few fungi . So I grabbed a few photos , I have no idea what they are.

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And the others

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And my lazy hammock spot

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Your lazy hammock spot is the very definition of what a Texan thinks of when they think of Australia. I'm so jealous. :D

That second mushroom looks vaguely famaliar. I'm going to look into it and see if I get a lucky ID.

Have seen the shroom in first pic..somewhere.  LOL, probably in a shroom i d book  :-?

Second pic is a meadow mushroom (agaricus spp) ...I think :D