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Granity · 22-06-2012, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christina Websell

"Tom" wrote in message
2.222...
wrote in
:

wrote:
To a naive person, the fungus that grew in my garden that I
couldn't identify might have been taken for a horse or even
field mushroom. It was a suitable shape, with suitable gills,
whitish and the gills went pinkish brown as it matured. But
I think that it was a Hebeloma, all of which are poisonous
(though not lethal). I knew enough to be damn sure that it
wasn't an Agaricus, even if I couldn't tell what it was.

Blimey, they do look similar looking at
Hebeloma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I /have/ grown plain common
mushrooms from a kit before (and I have one still /trying/ to grow in
the bathroom, but it's really really not having it!!), but there isn't
much risk going on there. :-}

Those pictures and description aren't sufficient for you
to be able to identify species accurately. Don't forget
that anyone can create/edit wackypedia pages, and there
is a whole sub-industry devoted to "sanitising" entries.

Is wackypedia a suitable basis for making life-criticla
decisions

No and neither was my mushroom book.
I made a bad decision once, never again.

Don't give up, it happens to most wild mushroom foragers occasionally, just make sure you can identify the seriously poisonous ones such as the Aminitas.

Don't forget, that the Agaricus xanthodermus, the yellow stainer mushroom can cause tummy upsets.
Both the Horse Mushroom and Yellow Stainer ‘bruise’ yellow. But the Yellow Stainer has a stronger chromium yellow once bruised. If you rub the cap with your thumb, there will be a very noticeable colour change. A good test is at the base. Take a knife to the bottom of the stem, the base is more bulbous than the others, and cut in half, if the colour changes to a vivid yellow, then you’ve got a Yellow Stainer. (this is why you should always pull up a few of the specimens so that you can look at the stem base as it's an essential part of the identification process) Horse and Field mushrooms do not stain at the base like this.

http://www.mushroomdiary.co.uk/wp-co...ainer-ring.jpg

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...wgOVYrgt29STw6