The Ultimate "What is this Fungi?" thread.

[Chiseller]

Just eaten my first shaggy cap....gorgeous....I'm now never going to pass one again thinking I'll get it later , only to find it gone

Which mushroom is this then ......



The Mighty Oak Is Merely A Nut Who Stood His Ground

[Nice65]

Cep, or Penny Bun. Gotta be.

[Geoff Dann]

Just eaten my first shaggy cap....gorgeous....I'm now never going to pass one again thinking I'll get it later , only to find it gone

Which mushroom is this then ......

Amanita echinocephela...

[Chiseller]

Cep, or Penny Bun. Gotta be.

Good call :-D

The Mighty Oak Is Merely A Nut Who Stood His Ground

[Chiseller]

Amanita echinocephela...

Monster ! Edible Geoff ?

The Mighty Oak Is Merely A Nut Who Stood His Ground

[Geoff Dann]

Monster ! Edible Geoff ?

The Mighty Oak Is Merely A Nut Who Stood His Ground

Far too rare to consider eating, and probably poisonous anyway. They are pretty impressive mushrooms, not that I see them very often...

[Chiseller]

Far too rare to consider eating, and probably poisonous anyway. They are pretty impressive mushrooms, not that I see them very often...

Respect and protect the rare and one day to forage them when needed may be fair ?

The Mighty Oak Is Merely A Nut Who Stood His Ground

[udamiano]

for your collection, a couple of Boletus

P1000299.jpgP1000301.jpg

A couple of interesting fungi, from onsite. the complete one was about 8" did not seen many that size before

[Geoff Dann]

for your collection, a couple of Boletus

P1000299.jpgP1000301.jpg

A couple of interesting fungi, from onsite. the complete one was about 8" did not seen many that size before

Those'll be Penny Buns. They get even bigger than that sometimes.

[udamiano]

Those'll be Penny Buns. They get even bigger than that sometimes.

I've seen a few bigger, although most usually have been picked before I get to see them ! the only good part of that is I get to see them again after they have been cooked in butter yum yum

[insomniac247]

I was out this morning and came across about a dozen of these, I cant seem to find them in a Collins pocket guide I have and didn't have my camera with me so brought one back and took pictures at home, as you can see they are huge! this wasn't even the biggest

[insomniac247]

And the underside

[red devil]

Blimey, who'd-a-thunk there were some many funghi lying around UK woodlands?
I'm very new at this game and it's fascinating stuff, isn't it - it's taken me a week of constant repetition to remember the latin name for birch polypore!
I found these little guys lying on dead trunks near my house yesterday and I can't find them in my UK wildlife guide (don't have a specialist funghi guide yet but maybe Santa will be kind to me this year).
Can anyone offer any suggestions?
The largest are only about 2inches across at the most.

[IMG] Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

Thanks in advance,
Steve

[Geoff Dann]

I was out this morning and came across about a dozen of these, I cant seem to find them in a Collins pocket guide I have and didn't have my camera with me so brought one back and took pictures at home, as you can see they are huge! this wasn't even the biggest

That's one of two species I find hard enough to distinguish in the flesh, let alone from a picture. There's an outside chance it is Giant Funnel (Leucopaxillus giganteus), but I think it is Trooping Funnel (Clitocybe geotropa). Both edible when young, and lots of the latter about at the moment.

[Geoff Dann]

Blimey, who'd-a-thunk there were some many funghi lying around UK woodlands?

There's about four times as many native and naturalised non-microscopic fungi in the UK (approx 10,000) as there are native and naturalised non-microscopic plants (approx 2,500).

I'm very new at this game and it's fascinating stuff, isn't it - it's taken me a week of constant repetition to remember the latin name for birch polypore!
I found these little guys lying on dead trunks near my house yesterday and I can't find them in my UK wildlife guide (don't have a specialist funghi guide yet but maybe Santa will be kind to me this year).
Can anyone offer any suggestions?
The largest are only about 2inches across at the most.

[IMG] Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

Thanks in advance,
Steve

Hi Steve

Not easy. Have you got any other shots? I can't quite work out what the underside is like. Pores? Teeth? Do you know what sort of wood it is? What does it feel like? How tough is the flesh? Does it smell of anything?

If possible, cut one in half and show us a section.

It may be one of the many fungi that occur in the northern half of Scotland but are absent from most of the rest of the UK. I'm pretty sure I've never seen it before, and I don't think it is in any of my books. Not that that is all that unusual...

Geoff

[red devil]

Ooh, a mystery... brilliant! I'm away to my work this afternoon but first thing tomorrow I'll drag the pup back down the woods and do some more forensic stuff - will get some samples/pics etc and post again soon (that's if I can find them again under last night's blanket of thick snow).
Cheers for now Geoff,
Steve

[insomniac247]

Thanks Geoff. is it just me or do all the fungi seem much bigger this year

[Geoff Dann]

Thanks Geoff. is it just me or do all the fungi seem much bigger this year

I think that must just be you...

[red devil]

Damn weather... went back to the woods briefly this morning to try to find the fungi I posted about yesterday but everywhere is under a foot of snow. I'll keep popping back until I find them and will post more info.
Steve

[Emdiesse]

I went on a little forage on Sunday to look for some cramp ball fungus (I have just bought a fire piston), my eagle eye girlfriend spotted a big cluster of them so I took a few older black ones to dry out. On our little excursion through the woods we spotted loads of mushrooms and despite my best efforts to identify them in some of my mushroom books I could not find any of them. Is someone able to point me towards a good resource to teach how to identify mushrooms... what mycological characteristics to look for and how to them find them in identification books or online, etc.

Here are some of the mushrooms we saw on our travels:

1. Looks dead, but was a huge bracket fungus on a chopped down oak. I did discover that oak trees can have a huge parasitic fungus that rots the inside of the tree and when the fruiting body is seen then the tree is lost... But this chopped down oaks insides looks healthy to my untrained eye. Any ideas what this is, or if it is the parasitic fungus I found in one of my books (Inonotus dryadeus)?



2. Jelly-like, black, dead oak - bulgaria inquinans? (in the uk?)


3.



4.



5.



6.



7. This looks like a puffball to me... but growing on a tree stump? Or is it growing from the moss? I thought they grew on the ground, so what is it?



8.


9.



Thanks,
Matt

[Geoff Dann]

Hi Emdiesse

1. [Edited to change to: not sure]
2. Yes.
3. Oyster mushroom.
4. Not sure.
5. Looks like a Panaeoulus, but these usually grow in grass.
6. Looks like a Wood Blewit, not certain from that photo.
7. Stump puffball.
8. Honey Fungus (Armillaria mellea)
9. Oyster.

Geoff

[Emdiesse]

Thanks for the reply. My girlfriend said the 3rd looked like an oyster mushroom! I'd like to be able to start to recognise oyster mushrooms when I see them (I hear that it's the easiest to get to grips with) but to me the 3rd and the 9th look so different. How can I be sure when I see what I suspect to be an oyster mushroom that it is definitely an oyster mushroom, what do I look for/at? Are there any other similar species?

[Geoff Dann]

Thanks for the reply. My girlfriend said the 3rd looked like an oyster mushroom! I'd like to be able to start to recognise oyster mushrooms when I see them (I hear that it's the easiest to get to grips with)

Then I'd check back the last few pages of this thread if I were you....

but to me the 3rd and the 9th look so different. How can I be sure when I see what I suspect to be an oyster mushroom that it is definitely an oyster mushroom, what do I look for/at? Are there any other similar species?

There's several species of oyster mushroom (genus Pleurotus) in the UK, which are not always easy to tell apart, but all of which are edible. It's pretty hard to mistake them for anything seriously poisonous....apart from those Angel's Wings (see a few pages back, long story....)

Oyster mushrooms are one of many species of fungi that just happen to be very variable by nature, and for that reason they can't qualify amongst the easiest to identify.

[Emdiesse]

Then I'd check back the last few pages of this thread if I were you....



There's several species of oyster mushroom (genus Pleurotus) in the UK, which are not always easy to tell apart, but all of which are edible. It's pretty hard to mistake them for anything seriously poisonous....apart from those Angel's Wings (see a few pages back, long story....)

Oyster mushrooms are one of many species of fungi that just happen to be very variable by nature, and for that reason they can't qualify amongst the easiest to identify.

Thanks for the info, following on from this I discovered this report which, amongst many other poisonings, discusses the Angel Wing poisonings in Japan.
http://web.archive.org/web/200807040...r/2004Case.htm

Although I already had it in my mind that I would like to attend some mushroom foraging courses this has really pointed out just how important it is that you can be >120% certain of any single mushrooms identification before you even consider your options with it, especially eating it. Scary stuff. I feel even if you can be >120% sure of a fungus' identity maybe you should always keep a small sample slice of the mushroom just in case (There seemed to be even cases of other mushrooms known to be edible causing poisoning (contamination? or freaks of nature?))

[Geoff Dann]

Although I already had it in my mind that I would like to attend some mushroom foraging courses

I run courses in Sussex. I'll have new webpage sorted out in the coming days and will post a link in this thread.

[Emdiesse]

I run courses in Sussex. I'll have new webpage sorted out in the coming days and will post a link in this thread.

Sounds good to me, A little google and I have found some information about this however I will patiently await the arrival of your new webpage.

Cheers

[Geoff Dann]

Sounds good to me, A little google and I have found some information about this however I will patiently await the arrival of your new webpage.

Cheers

Still a couple of pictures not working as I type this, should be fixed shortly.

Geoff's partially-complete non-profit-making guide to edible fungi in Sussex:

http://www.wibberley.org/fungiforaging/fungiindex.htm

[Harvestman]

Thanks for that link Geoff, that's a really informative site even if it isn't finished. Great work.

[Emdiesse]

Still a couple of pictures not working as I type this, should be fixed shortly.

Geoff's partially-complete non-profit-making guide to edible fungi in Sussex:

http://www.wibberley.org/fungiforaging/fungiindex.htm

Thanks for the link, also I am very interested in your mushroom foraging sessions. I believe I will have a few friends who would be interested as well and so I will discuss this with them.

One final note, I love the bottom picture on the fungi foraging website, so many mushrooms! Only one I can recognise however is the Fly Agaric (Amanita Muscaria); which I guess shows my level of skill ...

[Geoff Dann]

Thanks for the link, also I am very interested in your mushroom foraging sessions. I believe I will have a few friends who would be interested as well and so I will discuss this with them.

OK. You've got my contact details.

One final note, I love the bottom picture on the fungi foraging website, so many mushrooms! Only one I can recognise however is the Fly Agaric (Amanita Muscaria); which I guess shows my level of skill ...

Most of the rest of them are puffballs, with a few little boletes, some white Inocybes, some pink Mycena rosea and a few other bits and pieces too. I've been to that exactly the same location in the past and found it carpetted with false saffron milkcaps.