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  • Thanks for all the help folks. It looks like I've tried to sprint before I can even walk.

    I'll order a book and do my research before attempting again. I had really believed that the poisonous ones would be the odd ones out and the majority would be fair game.

    Good job we found some chestnuts on the way home.

  • It looks like you've got some Boletus in there and possibly a yellow swamp brittlegill. The former are worth checking out. The latter is part of the Russula family, which are possibly my favourite to see, because they come in wonderful colours. Quite a lot of the remainder appear to be in the family "little brown mushroom", which could include something that will happily kill you, or at least make you very unwell.

    TBH I think the best way of mushroom foraging is not to pick everything and then try to ID it, but to be absolutely fucking rock solid on your identification of just a handful of species that are (i) edible, (ii) actually tasty and so worth looking for, and (iii) impossible to confuse with anything else that might do you a mischief. My shortlist for that is:

    1. Cep/Penny bun
    2. Chanterelle (can be confused with false chanterelle, which is not deadly but can cause hallucinations apparently - worth getting someone to show you them side-by-side)
    3. Morel
    4. Hedgehog fungus
    5. Shaggy Inkcaps (not to be eaten with alcohol)
    6. Amethyst Deceiver
    7. Chicken of the woods

    I don't even pick field mushrooms, because there is unpleasant stuff that looks similar, but that is me being hyper-cautious.

    As always, the best thing to do is find a local expert and buy a good book.

  • Impeccable advice!

  • Parasol/Shaggy parasol are pretty easy to ID and good to eat too. There's a book which focuses on 7 or so varieties that are good to eat and goes into some depth. I also found it helpful to get very well acquainted with the most poisonous species as well as reading accounts of how people came to eat poisonous mushrooms and understand the mistakes they make. The Evans story I posted above is incredible because he's clearly intelligent, they have an actual fungi ID book with them but no one takes responsibility for doing a 100% ID. As soon as they do it's completely obvious they've eaten a poisonous mushroom. Either way, be careful, because getting poisoned by mushrooms is by all accounts horrendous.

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