"Jaques d'Alltrades" wrote in message
k...
The message
from Janet Galpin contains these words:

I think there are probably more people who *don't* eat perfectly edible
mushrooms just in case, than those who rush into eating poisonous ones.
I have quite a few mushrooms this year and have been trying to identify
them positively enough to take the plunge and eat them. I know they're
not Amanita phalloides because I've taken their spore print which is
brown rather than white. I'm now wondering, having eliminated Amanita
phalloides, how likely it is that mushrooms which look very like rather
thin versions of shop-bought mushrooms, with pale brown gills and brown
spore prints, could be anything other than edible.

Very easily, I'm afraid. Even the genus Agaricus (in which your
shop-bought mushrooms reside) has at least three indiginous species
which you'd be wise to avoid.

I'd advise you to get a good book, such as Roger Phillips' excellent
'Mushrooms and Other Fungi of Great Britain and Europe', and it's not
too late to look in your local paper or library and find expert-led
fungus forays starting from your area.

For anyone interested in eatying wild mushrooms, I can highly recommend
www.mycologue.com
The chap who runs it knows his mushrooms alright and sells everything
mushroom related including some very good books.