| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Woodburner |
Mushroom Q Am I gong to die?Or have a nice meal ?
I found some mushrooms(?) growing near the base of a hedge in Mum's garden. They look like mushrooms, maybe a tiny bit glossier, have mushroom frills slightly lighter like yong mushrooms but these are 3", not open flat yet, typical mushroom shape, mushroom type frill comes off easily, peels like a mushroom, stem came off cleanly, smells like a mushroom and tastes like one too. (raw that is) So my real question is, are there any toxic lookalikes? I have vague recollections from when I did a lot of research into foraging for fungi, that there is one but, in particular, the frill is different, doesn't come off cleanly or is non existant or something |
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| sally_in_wales |
You really need to post a picture at the very least, even then our resident shroom experts might ask you complicated extra questions. Worth it though to be on the safe side and find out for next time what it is 
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| Jonnyboy |
You really shouldn't eat anything you have foraged without having a 100% positive, double triple checked identification. And that goes double for fungi. | ||||||
| Stewy |
Blimey, you are taking a risk! what mushrooms do you think they look like? There are hundreds of different shrooms out there and as for them peeling.......... 
You say you've done a lot of research into foraging for fungi??? 
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| Woodburner |
The ones you get in the shops, the really common ones not the funny Japanese things either, I call anything other than field mushrooms toadstools anyway, even puffballs. The peeling thing is a recognition thing not relevent to all fungi but still a tool. It might not be particualarly relevent in this case even, unless death cap doesn't peel and that's the distinguishing characteristic, but I did my reading so long ago I don't remember the details of the lookalikes etc. Someone else reminded me it's deathcap. I was 99.9% sure, but remembered there is a lookalike and was double checking to make sure it wasn't that. The only way to be 100% sure isn't getting someone else to identify it but getting it lab tested. If I can get it wrong so can someone else. My Mum knew they were there (they're in her garden after all) and that I was nibbling one. I'm pretty chuffed to have this little patch, how can I encourage it to keep going? (Ok it's in Mum's garden but i'm just next door )
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| Stewy |
Hmmmm a Death Cap looks NOTHING like a Field Shroom so I think you've had some bad advice there.
Have you got any books? |
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| Tavascarow |
http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/
You will be suprised how many look like ordinary mushrooms as you say & how many can make you crook. If they are fruiting now, & around a tree they sure as hell aren't field mushrooms. |
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| Woodburner |
I agree, but then I am pretty discriminating, this person said that he had had people think it was field mushroom though. So if that's not the nasty lookalike could you please tell me which one is. I don't have my original resources so I can't look it up, without at least a name. Going steadily through loads of fungi on Roger's mushroom's I find it might possibly be Horse mushroom (Agaricus arvensis) but it says that it doesn't smell like ordinary mushrooms, anyway that's edible so it's not the nasty lookalike that I need to eliminate. Edit actually Wiki points out the amanita as lookalikes too. Some people must be very unobservant. ;? |
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| Stewy |
Probably the Yellow Stainer (Agaricus xanthodermus)
http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/gallery/DisplayBlock~bid~5503.asp |
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| Nick |
You are going to die. Fact. | ||||||
| bingo |
Mental | ||||||
| Stewy |
Do you know anything about the Old Beams Inn near Ringwood Bingo? | ||||||
| bingo |
No? | ||||||
| Stewy |
Ok, It's just that we had some grub there earlier and I was convinced that you were one of the chefs!!! Must lay off the cider. | ||||||
| Woodburner |
Got it! It's a Horse mushroom. We had some norwegian spruce maybe 10ft away cut down a few months ago. It had a very faint spicy sort of smell when I first picked it but it had gone completely by the time I got to the house, 20 yards away. I put it down to the humus it was growing in. It's REALLY hard to distinguish from field mushroom but is also edible. |
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| Woodburner |
Posts crossed, too busy watching telly 
I found that one too and tested for it too, just before you posted. |
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| Woodburner |
Who are you asking? No, anyway. |
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| bingo |
Naa not me buddy |
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| Stewy |
Bingo. |
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| Woodburner |
Wacky looking chef then? Bingo's avatar looks like he's been at thr wrong kind of shrooms 
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| gnome |
there are loads of edible mushrooms -and some look most unlikely. some look edible, but are deadly poisonous. there are lotsof old wives tales about how you can tell he difference between a edible fungus anda posonous fungus - and they are all wrong, so ignore them. there are only two ways t tell the difference between them - one is to get a really good book on fungi - with lots of good colour pictures of each one, and a guide that says where they grow and what time of year they fruit.
the other - eat it. if you die, it was poisonous. actually most poisonous fungi only make you very sick (though some can cause long term damage), but there are a fewtha are vey poisonous, and unfortunately theyy look quite inoccuous. |
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| Woodburner |
I had a good book originally but this time around I've been using a very comprehensive website. It's good on identification but a bit hard to search if you don't know the name to start with.
I don't go by old wives tales, ever. Oh yeah and I'm still here, no tummy ache or anything else. 
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| gnome |
that' wy a book isbetter. i have a big one that has pictures for each, and theyare aranged by appearance, so you browse through the pictures, not by name. |