RE: The Amateur Mycologist #17 - Auricularia auricula - The Jelly Ear Mushroom
I must admit, I don't know a lot about mushrooms, but they have recently been catching my eye. I have challenged myself to a personal photo-a-day challenge, and I have found that the camera brings out a lot of hidden beauty in mushrooms. Now, I want to learn more! I saw this article resteemed by @fabulousfungi, and I'm glad I checked it out. Following in hopes that I can learn more!
Would you mind checking out a post and giving me some advice on what features I need to focus on to help identify fungi? I took photos and tested a few things that I've read about, but I'm not sure that they are sufficient. The post is https://steemit.com/nature/@sustainablyyours/daily-photo-shoot-8-18-17-a-mushroom-patch. Any advice you have is much appreciated!
Hey - i read your post and I really appreciate that you're coming at the process in a detail oriented and respectfully circumspect way.
I'm going to say here what I say first now in all my posts - I don't advise anyone to forage wild mushrooms for food without consulting with local experts. I think you should google the nearest mycological society and/or meetup - and try to go hunting with them. IMO that is the only way to really be confident and feel safe doing it alone eventually.
Having said that, ID'ing for non-foraging purposes is a ton of fun for me and others and I think learning to do that is great hobby. Plus with your camera skills it can help to create Steemit content that is both pretty, informative, and responsible.
You already have a great eye for detail, even knowing to look for latex for example or the nearby environment. Some other factors to consider might be smell of the mushroom, a cross section of the stem to check for hollowness, or the changing of flesh or gill color after damaging. There are also several reagents sold online whch react with certain mushrooms in certain ways and for some mushrooms those reactions can be centrally important in getting to a species. Lastly, A spore print is often very important.
With the ones in your post, going back to see what those mushrooms look like when they deteriorate would also be telling. One of the larger ones appears to have a slight darkening on the edge of its cap which could be the start of deliquescence - or auto digestion. That would place you pretty squarely in the Coprinus genus. In terms of getting it down to which species, that's harder. I think maybe the species you found online seems to have caps that are a bit darker than the ones you found.
Unfortunately the details you need to look for for definitive identification change from species to species. You can try mushroomexpert.com and see if he has a key for coprinus species - then you can run thw characteristics of these mushrooms through that key and see what it "keys out" to.
For many species ambiguity is the norm - and it often becomes a game of precentages - i.e. based on X characteristics this is either species A or B - and I'm leaning towards B because of Y.
If you want to take it to the next level of accuracy you should buy some mushro field guides eithr specific to your region to even to a particular genus - and buy an inexpensive mucroscope - then you can start to examine spore structurez as well - which for some mushrooms, like many lactarius for instance, can also be important.
All of which is to say the rabbit hole, even for an amatuer, goes deep if you want it to. For my purposes, I stay relatively shallow, which is part of the reason I don't eat my finds. :).
Don't worry! I am not going to eat anything I find on my own, but I certainly like the suggestion of going out with a local mycological society. I didn't even know there was such a thing. That is a ton of information! I really appreciate you taking the time for such a detailed reply. You provided several resources and ideas that I will definitely check out, and gave me some new things to look for when gathering data in my attempts to identify what I have.
Sorry about spelling - on my phone :)