Any mushroom experts?

[RogerS]

There's a cluster of these on our drive. The largest (the singleton) is about 6" diameter. Smells "very mushroomy"

I wondered if it was a St George's but the wrong season. I can't find anything similar on wild foods.co.uk

 

[Fat ferret]

Look like clouded agaric/clitocybe. You eat things at your own risk (I'm not a mushroom expert) but I collect wild mushrooms and these aren't bad at all but apparently some people are allergic to them. Had some for lunch today funnily enough, found them by the road. Like most wild mushrooms you need to pick them at the right stage, they get maggoty when they are past it, yours look past it.

This guy is local to me and has written about them in his blog. Worth a read. http://www.gallowaywildfoods.com/?page_id=804

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Golden rule.....if you aren't 100% certain of its identity don't eat it. If for some strange reason you have to try it, eat a tiny amount and wait 48 hours to "test" it. Mushrooms almost always regrow in the same or similar spots so you'll have another opportunity to pick the fruiting bodies again likely enough. Remember the bulk of the fungi is resident underground and the toadstools are its reproductive organs, much like fruit.

As a tip, generally speaking there are more bad news specimens with white gills. You MUST get a decent field guide and I would recommend Mushrooms by Roger Phillips. Also if you concentrate early pickings in the boletus family (spores under the cap not gills) then its impossible to eat a lethal one as none of the Boletus family are deadly. In fact, many of them are absolutely choice, in particular the much sought after Boletus Edulis which is our Penny Bun or what the Italians call Porcini and French the Cep. Its delicious as are many of its close cousins...Birch Bolete etc.

Get a decent book and maybe take a paid guided forage to start you off, its a fascinating and delicious addition to an Autumn woodland ramble

There are very few naturally growing things in British countryside that can despatch a fully grown man but Death cap and Destroying Angel are two such species.

 

[Kalimna]

Greetings,
I'm afraid I can't really help out with identification of the OP fungi, but I found this little fella at the weekend, just off the path near the Kelpies in Falkirk. I am not absolutely certain of the species, but reckon it might be an amanita, notice the volva at the base and the overall near-pure white. Didn't want to pick it to take a spore print, especially with two young boys about the house, though they are both very good not to touch mushrooms it he wild.

Any thoughts? I'm fairly certain it shouldn't be consumed... Random Orbital?

Cheers,
Adam

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Trying to 2nd guess from a single photo is simply not enough information. Death Cap's typically have a greenish hue although less so when they're young. The Volva is a dead give away for one of the amanite species, many of which are poisonous. There is also a more rare pure white form of death cap which doesn't bode well and the Destroying Angel is every bit as deadly as the Death Cap and that's also pure white! Mushrooms/toadstools also present more problems to the would be identifier when they're young which this one clearly is Kalimna. That membranous bag covering the gills will eventually burst and the cap will likely flatten out to reveal its more typical form, very important for id. So again, foragers beware if you're picking mushrooms young because more id mistakes are made when at that stage. Better to look close by to find adult specimens to see how the younger ones are likely to turn out since where there's a young one, often there are more mature specimens nearby. You'd be surprised how the colours can darken with age including gill colour.
I wouldn't touch that one with a barge pole!

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

For any who have seen John Wright on the River Cottage programmes, he has published a simple mushroom hunters field guide called simply; Mushrooms. That's also a useful, small sized and inexpensive guide to the more common species. I'll say it again though, Golden Rule, if you can't be 100% certain of its id, you're risking your health and possibly your life eating it.

 

[Kalimna]

Bob - thank you for your reply, which to an extent confirms my suspicions of it being a destroying angel. I realise a single photo isn't terribly useful for id, but it was raining, we were out with family and friends with only my phones' camera... Excuses, excuses. There were no nearby fungi, this specimen popped up through the longish grass which had a reed bed a couple of metres further away. Nearby trees primarily deciduous and of a mixed nature, none spring to mind as being birch, oak, ash, beech or sycamore. Unfortunately the photo isn't as clear as it might have been, and the gills were visible, and white. It was also about 6cm tall (from memory). I do have the River Cottage guide, along with a couple of more serious field guides, but all are currently packed away for our house move.
I hadn't realised that a white version of A. phalloides existed, but never having knowingly seeing one of the olive-hued in the flesh anyway, it wouldn't have crossed my mind.
I would also wholeheartedly agree with the "learn 5 or 6 edible mushrooms in their entirety, from young to old and different forms, and if it what you find isn't one of them then don't pick it" philosophy. I reckon I can identify giant puffball, shaggy ink cap and a boletus correctly, and chanterelles (separating out the 'false' one with a guidebook - something about gills and where they terminate if I recall) but that's about it. I'd love to know more, but it's difficult to be confident from a book.

Cheers,
Adam

P.s 1000th post. Woohoo!

 

[RogerS]

Thanks guys....think I will pass on eating it!

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Bob - thank you for your reply, which to an extent confirms my suspicions of it being a destroying angel. I realise a single photo isn't terribly useful for id, but it was raining, we were out with family and friends with only my phones' camera... Excuses, excuses. There were no nearby fungi, this specimen popped up through the longish grass which had a reed bed a couple of metres further away. Nearby trees primarily deciduous and of a mixed nature, none spring to mind as being birch, oak, ash, beech or sycamore. Unfortunately the photo isn't as clear as it might have been, and the gills were visible, and white. It was also about 6cm tall (from memory). I do have the River Cottage guide, along with a couple of more serious field guides, but all are currently packed away for our house move.
I hadn't realised that a white version of A. phalloides existed, but never having knowingly seeing one of the olive-hued in the flesh anyway, it wouldn't have crossed my mind.
I would also wholeheartedly agree with the "learn 5 or 6 edible mushrooms in their entirety, from young to old and different forms, and if it what you find isn't one of them then don't pick it" philosophy. I reckon I can identify giant puffball, shaggy ink cap and a boletus correctly, and chanterelles (separating out the 'false' one with a guidebook - something about gills and where they terminate if I recall) but that's about it. I'd love to know more, but it's difficult to be confident from a book.

Cheers,
Adam

P.s 1000th post. Woohoo!

I don't think I'm much further forward than you Adam. I've been foraging on and off for years now but also the learning has come through books primarily. I do have a life sciences degree which helps a bit with the technical stuff but I'm by no means an expert on Fungi. What I've found over the years is that you tend to find 10 to 20 favourite spots where the same species fruits time after time and that really eases the stress over id the 2nd time round because you're reasonably certain you know what it is if its in the same place. I would add to your list the following species which are both delicious saute'd in garlic and butter and also easy to id and that's the Parasols, shaggy or not, chicken of the woods and good old horse or field mushrooms. The nice thing about field and horse mushrooms is that they're often sufficiently far away from hardwood trees to almost completely preclude them from being the dangerous amanites. They're also pretty easy to id and common as muck. Another good place for them is grass verges. They like short cropped grass which is why they tend to be in fields being grazed by animals or verges. The sudden change from grass to concrete is a dead giveaway mushroom hunters. The underground hairs of the fungi hit the solid concrete barrier and it thinks its in trouble (it gets stressed) so as a natural response it throws up fruiting bodies to proliferate spores as a means of keeping its species viable. Clever little things aren't they? Imagine if that was a human response to stress.....go out shopping......stub your toe....response is to reproduce with the first person you see!

 

[whiskywill]

This is a good place to look but it's not easy to positively identify what you have found. http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

This is a good place to look but it's not easy to positively identify what you have found. http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/

That's it. Rogersmushrooms is authored by the chap I referenced in my first post. (Roger Phillips) He is considered pretty much the popular mans authority on mushrooms a la Britain.

 

[John15]

Bob,

I'm no expert but they look like Horse Mushrooms which we used to collect many years ago. I seem to remember we ate them without any problems but can't be absolutely sure on that. I'm still here to tell the tale anyway.

John