If they look old or decaying, leave them in the ground. They should store for a week at home. Be sure to dig your mushroom out in a way that leaves the base of the stalk undamaged! Do not pull it up. Replace the soil when you are done. Some mushrooms have important features, such as an easily destroyed sac, at the base of the stipe.

“When in doubt, throw it out!” If the mushroom looks good but there is something that bothers you about where you picked it, it’s not worth taking the chance!

“If an animal has nibbled the mushroom, it is fine. ” This is not true. “You can get rid of poisons by cooking the mushrooms. ” This is also false. Although cooking will get rid of harmful bacteria and make edible mushrooms much more digestible, you can’t make a poisonous mushroom edible by cooking it! “Mushrooms that smell good must be edible. ” This is simply not true.

Plastic sandwich bags will turn them to unidentifiable mush.

How does your mushroom smell? Does the mushroom smell generically fungal or phenolic? Don’t taste the mushroom until you have finished the complete identification process.

Are the gills covered by a veil of thin, felt-like, or cobwebby tissue? See if the gills are connected to the stalk. If so, do they run down the stalk, meet it at a right angle, or barely touch it? This character, like color, can change in age! Does your mushroom have plate-like gills under the cap surface, wrinkles, spongy tubes, or something else? Do you see liquid oozing from the gills?

Look at the size, color and shape of the stalk. Is a stalk (stipe) present or absent?

What is the diameter of the mushroom cap? Are there colorful spots on the cap? Look at the color of the cap. What color is the flesh inside the cap? Does your mushroom bruise when cut or crushed? What color?

A GPS locator is an excellent tool here! Is the mushroom growing on dead wood, living tree, soil, moss, or something else entirely? While fungi can form associations with many plants, trees are the most relevant to identification. If you can’t tell the species of tree exactly, at least note whether conifers, hardwoods, or both are present. Which trees are present in the area? Make a note if your mushroom is growing in a lawn, on sand, on moss, on another mushroom, or any other site of interest.

If you anticipate a dark spore print, you should use white paper. If you anticipate a white or light spore print, you should use dark paper. If you have a sheet of glass, you can use it for the spore print. The terms for spore color can be very precise. Chocolate brown, tobacco brown, and rusty brown are entirely different colors!

For example, Volvariella speciosa, a popular edible species in Asia, can be easily confused with Amanita phalloides, a deadly poisonous species in North America and Europe. [12] X Research source

You should also avoid the little brown mushroom, which is poisonous. It also looks a bit like the mushrooms you see in a supermarket.

A jack-o’-lantern or false chanterelle is deep orange. In contrast, a chanterelle mushroom can be anything from light yellow or orange yellow. Whereas jack-o’-interns grow in bunches that are attached at the stem, chanterelles like to grow alone or in small bunches and with separate stems.

You will typically pay a small membership fee. For instance, the Wisconsin mycology society has forays, lectures, dinners and workshops on mushrooms. [17] X Research source The Mycological Society of Toronto runs forays in the spring and fall picking seasons, hosts dinners and runs lectures. It also has a quarterly newsletter called “Mycelium. ” [18] X Research source

If you are part of a mycological society, you should be able to meet some fellow mushroom loving friends at one of the forays.

For instance, a good introduction is How to Identify Edible Mushrooms by Tony Lion and Gill Tomblin. Mushrooms by Roger Phillips is a good place to start. You might be interested in Mushrooms: River Cottage Handbook No 1.

Avoid poisonous species like amanita, galerina, entoloma and cortinarius.