Hi folks. I forage for plants. I know those pretty well. Whn I don’t, I use an app caled PlantNet (definitely recommend it) is there something similar I can use where you take a picture and verify?
Where do I start? Any advice for a beginner?
I only recently got started myself but the best app to start identifying shroomsis that I have found is Shroomify! The free version does the job, but the premium version adds some nice features and it only costs one-time fee of a coffee, which I find rather fair.
I will check it out, thanks.
Also, poured some coffee on my cellphone.
That’s an odd way of consuming coffee…
It was a one time fee!
😅😅
Learn the foolproof 4. Also, idk about in other apps, but in inaturalist, they give you a chart that shows when a particular species is seen in the year. You can also look at the map in your area to see where and when they show up in your area specifically. For example, it looks like cinnabar chantrelles show up in mid July- mid August in my area, so that’s when I know to look for them.
Just kinda a broad piece of mushroom advice, lots of them end up covered in dirt that is hard to wash off. It’s still worthwhile to keep them to turn into mushrooms stock, cause you can basically decant off the stock leaving any dirt behind.
Foolproof 4?
The easy to identify, no deadly lookalikes.
That depends on where in the world you are, but in North America it would be chicken of the woods, chanterelle, morels and lion’s mane.
Some would add oysters and puffballs, though they are less striking in appearance and a newbie could misidentify them. I don’t think the lookalikes are deadly though, but that doesn’t mean they won’t cause you GI distress.
Oh and the unspoken rule of morels is that if you find them, you have to tell me and only me where.
I’ve always heard giant puffballs over lions mane. They claim that super young puffballs could look like death cap buttons, but you’d never try to harvest them that young, anyway
Mushrooms can be tricky to ID if you aren’t used to them. They require looking at a different set of traits and keeping some flexibility in mind when it comes to certain attributes.
I recommend learning which species in your area are common and easy to identify and starting with those. If you live in North America some easy ones are chanterelles, morels, most polypores, and oyster mushrooms.
Mycokey is very good, learn the basics with the identification wheels.
Edit: Also where do you live, we can suggest better resources like that!
Get a field guide to native mushrooms in your area, they tend to be very helpful for a start. In all honesty though the way I learned best was through practice. Whenever I’m out in about I’ll try and identify the mushrooms I see and after a while you start recognizing them on sight. Any service that offers mushroom identification through picture is bound to fail you eventually and usually quite often, some of the core ways of identifying mushrooms involve taking spore prints, checking for bruising when handled, and gill attachment; none of which are easily in just one or two pictures. It’s better to have a book imo.
