Shooting Times & Country Magazine
ID: why there’s not mushroom for error
John Wright explains how the novice forager can boost their knowledge to avoid being poisoned by wild fungi
February may not be the best time to think about mushrooms because few are around in the depths of winter. But it may be a good time to prepare for the year ahead, perhaps even the years ahead.
As I said in part one (Wild fungi warnings are deadly serious,
8 December 2021), the identification of fungi is a notoriously difficult skill to learn. There are 6,000 or 7,000 species of (non-microscopic) fungi in Britain. No one knows them all and, for the forager, there is no point in even trying.
I identified my first fungus in 1967 and I am barely a third of the way through this number. All the forager needs to do is learn a few edible species, all the seriously poisonous species and the commonest of the ‘mildly’ poisonous species.
In my Forager’s Calendar, I provide a list of the top 20 species of edible fungi. All these had three things in common: they taste good, they are common and they are easy to identify. An organised fungus foray is a good
“An organised fungus foray is a good way to learn”
way to learn and they are available all over Britain.
On my many forays, I often see between three and eight examples of these easy species, so you can learn quickly. Failing that, there is the harder way — learn them using books and the internet. This is how I learned — without the internet, obviously — and in the early days, with only the most rudimentary of books.
If you choose this difficult path, you will need to find quite a large number of fungi to identify. Collect with restraint and identify on the spot with a pocket guide if you can. Never take a basketful of a particular species on the off-chance they may be edible (speculative collecting), as you will probably throw them all away.
Good guides
You will need two or three good books to help you. Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms and Toadstools is good, as is Mushrooms, by Roger Phillips. Beyond these, modesty forbids.
I suggest skimming through them on a quiet evening, learning the characters you might need to consider and the groupings into which the fungi are classified: Agaricus, Russula, Amanita and so on. Look closely at those that are edible — not all the books tell you — and closer still at those that are poisonous.
Perhaps write a list of the species you would like to find and learn their
characteristics and type of habitat. I suggest collecting no more than half a dozen species on your first few tries. Any more can be discouraging.
Identification begins in the woods or field with a note of the habitat.
This will broadly be grassland or woodland. If the latter, determine what trees your find is growing near; yes, you must learn about trees first. Note the way the mushrooms are growing — on a tree stump, on a living tree, on soil, in leaf litter, in troops, in rings, singly, in tufts and so on.
Sniff them and note any smell. Look carefully at the colours and see if they change with time. Do handle your specimens with care, as many key characteristics can be easily destroyed. Take them home in sealed plastic boxes and keep them cool.
When you get home, the first thing to do is hide your books — you won’t need them yet. The time-honoured practice of flicking through until you spot something that looks a bit like the specimen in your hand is really a last resort and highly unreliable.
However, for potentially edible bracket fungi and Boletes — mushrooms with tubes — ‘flicking’ is the only practical answer. At least these species are distinctive. If you have a strong idea of what it might be then skip the next bit, which is obtaining a spore print.
Spore prints are only worthwhile for mushrooms with gills. Slice off the stem and lay the cap (gills down) on a sheet of white paper. If you wish to preserve your specimen intact, make a hole in the paper and thread the stem through, then sit the whole arrangement on a glass. Leave for two or three hours.
Telltale signs
If you do not wish to wait, take another specimen of the same species picked at the same spot and examine it. Although a typical mushroom looks as though it is nothing but cap, gills (or tubes) and stem, there is a lot more that can be described.
Here are a few things to examine, merely to get you started: smell, habitat and growth habit (you already have these). Cap: size, shape (flat, funnel, rounded, rounded with a bump and so on), texture (smooth, radiating fibres, slimy, sticky, damp, shiny, grooved edges and so on), colour (does it vary?). Cap flesh: colour and any changes after cutting, texture. Gills: forked or not, intermediate gills or not, thickness, attachment to stem (decurrent, adnexed, adnate — look these words up), colour. Stem: size, shape (tapering up or down, parallel, swollen at base), texture (fibrous, crumbly, rubbery), surface texture (slimy, dry, scaly, fibrous and so on), does it have a ring, if so, what is it like?
I could go on, a lot, but that is enough for now. Write down all the answers. You will now know a very great deal about your mushroom.