All mushrooms go through a process of maturation, followed by degradation as the mushroom serves its reproductive purpose and withers away. However, few mushroom break down quite as spectacularly as inky caps, and few inky caps transform as completely as Coprinus comatus, or the Shaggy Mane mushroom.

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As a young mushroom, the Shaggy Mane begins life as a scaly cylinder. The cap is mostly white with some brownish discoloration near the top. It looks sort of like the Ringo Starr of mushrooms, with a mop cut of brown hair.

This white cylinder grows taller and wider for a little while, until something astonishing begins to happen.

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The perfect white flesh starts to SELF-DIGEST

The mushroom's cap transforms from a firm, all white flesh, into a liquid, pure black ooze, or "ink." This process is referred to as deliquescing or "auto-digestion", and the broad range of mushrooms referred to loosely as "inky caps" all auto digest themselves.

It is always important to remember that the underlying purpose of a mushroom is reproduction. In this blog we've already seen mushrooms that transform into sacs of spores and spit spores into the air, And mushrooms that drop spores from their gills, Or seep spores like a kind of mucous out of their cap. Now we can add to this list of procreative methodologies "eating yourself and turning into spore filled black ooze."

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The Shaggy Mane is Saprobic (it grows on dead or decomposing organic matter) and grows all over Europe and, I believe, also in North America, although I have only ever encountered them in person in a public park in Madrid.

Like me, you may find C.comatus in the most unexpected places: popping up in the middle of a field, or in some grassy detritus in a park, or even shooting out of asphalt.

The mushroom is tenacious. It is also edible before the gills turn into black ooze, after which no one in their right mind would even consider eating this thing.

However, there are possible poisonous lookalikes. Compare C.comatus to the "Common Ink Cap", or Coprinopsis atramentaria.

This is the Common Ink Cap mushroom, and it contains a chemical called coprine. Coprine is a pretty crazy toxin. If you eat a Common Ink Cap by itself, you may not feel much of anything. But if you have even a little bit of alcohol, even up to three days after eating C.atramentaria , you will feel terrible.

The coprine is first broken down into an amino acid inside your body, 1-aminocyclopropanol. This amino acid is not in and of itself poisonous, but it prevents your body from eliminating the poisonous byproducts of alcohol consumption - specifically acetaldehyde.

Because eating the Common Ink Cap mushroom prevents your body from getting rid of acetaldehyde formed by alcohol, you will feel absolutely terrible soon after drinking. This may cause nausea, flushed skin, vomiting, and palpitations and just generally really sucks.

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For those interested in a near 100% "definitive" identification of a given mushroom as C.comatus, you may have a little difficulty. As with many other mushroom species, the advent of DNA analysis has not left the Coprinus genus untouched. Where once many mushrooms were bundled into the genus, now there is only comatus and a few close relatives.

Michael Kuo indicates the surest way to identify C.comatus as such might be to look for either a ring on the stem, or cut the mushroom in half and look for strings of material inside the stem.

Unfortunately, the fact that the cap auto-digests or deliquesces is NOT, in and of itself, a surefire identifying trait.

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The Shaggy Mane is a great addition to any mushroom hunter's repertoire - fairly specific in its look, fairly large in its stature, and both beautiful and bizarre in its physiological nature. As always, we suggest not eating your finds and getting to know a knowledgeable local or mycological association if you want to hunt for food.

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Do not rely on this, or any other Amateur Mycology post in deciding whether to eat a wild mushroom - use one of the many resources designed specifically, by professional mycologists to guide people in hunting and eating wild mushrooms

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Macroscopic Features:

• Cap = Small oval when very young to a long cylinder when mature. 1 - 6 inches (3-15cm) tall. When the mushroom gets older, it "deliquesces" or, auto-digests itself. This manifests first as a black stain at the bottom of the cap, which fairly quickly consumes the whole cap, turning it into a dark black ink. Mature, but not decomposed cap, has a shaggy surface and brown top like a little brown wig almost.

• Spore surface = Not connected to the stem. White at first - then pink - then eventually black and inky. Crowded together.

• Flesh = White and soft with a mild taste.

• Stem ("stipe") = There should be a small ring on the stem. 3.9-15.7in(10-40cm) high, and up to an inch (1-2.5cm) in diameter. Smooth texture and hollow - with "string-like strand of fibers hanging inside."

• Spore Print = Black

• Ecology ("How it grows.") = Saprobic - grows on dead organic matter - grows solitary or sometimes in small to large groups. Sometimes they make "fairy rings", or circles. They can grow on all kinds of mediums, from summer through fall.

• Distribution = Europe and North America.

• Edibility = Edible before it begins to turn into ink. After that process has begun it is not edible any longer and will quickly decompose.

• Other Traits = Watch out for the lookalike the Common Inky Cap, filled with the poison Coprine which will create a terrible poisonous response in your body if you drink alcohol after ingesting it.

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Disclaimer (Yes - A Bigger Disclaimer)

Since I've started to post these in the #foraging tag, I want to be clear about the risks of mushroom hunting. The fact is, hunting mushrooms as food is an inherently risky activity. These posts are species introductions intended to provide entertaining and edifying reading to readers unfamiliar with mushrooms. Do not rely on this, or any other Amateur Mycology post in deciding whether to eat a wild mushroom - use one of the many resources designed specifically, by professional mycologists to guide people in hunting and eating wild mushrooms.

As I frequently talk about, the entire Kingdom of fungi has been in flux since the advent of DNA analysis and as only an amateur mycologist, dealing only with macroscopic identification, my knowledge should be taken as introductory rather than comprehensive or encyclopedic - AND THESE POSTS SHOULD NOT BE USED TO IDENTIFY A MUSHROOM AND EAT IT. I could easily be wrong in identifying a species or describing a characteristic. Even trained mycologists have made mistakes and poisoned themselves in the course of their activities! As a result, I have and will continue to say in these posts that the safest approach is always going to be abstaining from eating your finds and, it goes without saying, you ingest wild mushrooms at your own risk.

Having said that, many people do take part in the hobby for foraging purposes, and doing so with an eye to detail and with a reasonable methodology is important. My hope in writing these posts is to inculcate good macro-identification habits in my readers and begin to eliminate the irrational fears which surround mushrooms and replace them with knowledge and a healthy respect. My suggestion for those who want to forage and have no actual hunting experience would be to forgo eating any mushroom until you find a fungi knowledgeable local or the local mycological society to hunt with. That's a great way to get comfortable with your local edibles make friends and be safe.

Have a Mushroom you want help identifying? - leave a message on the Steemit Mycology discord channel.

https://discord.gg/JJgEW2y

For The Online Mycokey program look Here

For A Crash Course On How To Identify A Mushroom Read The Amatuer Mycologist #3

For a Glossary Of Relevant Mycological Terms, Micheal Kuo's Website Provides

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Photo Sources:
[1]By Raphaël Blo. Own work CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
[2]By User:Nino Barbieri Own work own photo CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
[3]By Rob Hille Own work CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
[4]By Hannes Grobe/Hannes Grobe CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
[5]By Mr Barndoor Own work CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
[6]By Michael Palmer Own work CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Information sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprinopsis_atramentaria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprinus_comatus
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/coprinus_comatus.html
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/coprinopsis_atramentaria.html
https://naturespoisons.com/2014/04/10/coprine-alcohol-poisoning-from-mushrooms/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprine
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/817759-overview