These are popping up all over in my mulch. I assume they are beneficial, decomposing the wood chips, but thought I'd double-check with you mushroom experts.

Those are not shaggy mains but are in the ink cap family. Shagged grow in your grass on hard dirt. Don't eat them. Mycology is fun but people think they have a horse mushroom but get a Death angel mushroom. Morels are easy


start

Why thank you Dom, I am knowledgeable enough to still be alive at least!

That certainly is a Coprinoid mushroom, but not a shaggy mane. I have never found a shaggy mane actually, but I can tell from the photos that it is another species, the scales on the cap are very different. If you go to that link up there you will see that there are many species it could be, you will need to examine all parts carefully. If you take some time to learn mshroom terminology you might have some success identifying it from the key. Very few coprinoid mushrooms are edible, some of which react badly with alcohol. They will melt into black goo within a day or two so you will need to inspect them fast.

It occurs to me that you probably don't see many mushrooms there in Tucson Ken! If you would like to try growing some edibles in mulch, Fungi.com sells kits for several different mushrooms, I have been wanting to try the "Garden Giant" for some time.

Your welcome!

I deleted my post since I wasn't helpful.

Oh well on to more musings of mine.

You getting the family right is a good start Dom. Mushrooms are very complex and most people do not know much at all. Can be very dangerous of course, but wild plants can be too. What is really scary is that Amanitas, a mostly deadly poisonous mushroom family, are supposed to taste delicious, and have no real treatment other than liver transplant. So being careful and researching what you plan to eat is really really important.

Those are some nice Morels the Celt! I did not find that many all year, it really didn't rain much earlier in the month here and when it did the wind dried everything out. When did you find them? I thought the season was pretty much over around here but maybe I should take a hike. I usually find more half free morels early in the season than blacks and yellows though. It is almost Chicken of the Woods season! I find plenty of those.

Might want to insert a carriage return (<ENTER>) just before that pic of the morel.  You're losing half of the sentence for some depending on the resolution.

Thanks for the ID help!

If you have a baby that puts stuff in it's mouth get rid of them otherwise they are just chilling not bothering anything

Hoosierbanana- I found them on Sunday in my bolete field we had a ton of rain down here in sj. I have never found any in that fuels before. It was never burned or an orchard before. So I never even thought to look. I dried 3 lbs and ate a bunch fresh. That feild also gives me Agaricus and very odd not supposed to be here but liberty caps.

Jason,

Any chance you might be a Dead Head? As in Grateful Dead?
Say hello to Jerry Garcia dude

Are we still talking about mushrooms?

Otherwise, GBI might be very interested! ;-)

Ok Dom,

You got me,

Who's GBI?

Ken- They are making fertilizer out of your mulch. Fungi like this are not aggressive to living plants so no worries. It probably is a good idea to start mushroom farming in a more controlled situation. It is actually likely that a non-edible or poisonous mushroom strain will invade an outdoor patch... It is up to the person picking to correctly identify it as a weed species, not a casual thing really. But it is easy to do once you are familiar with different types of mushrooms.

The Celt- What type of Boletes? How much tree cover is in that field? I am scared of eating Agaricus because they are so close to Amanitas, they look exactly like pale portobellos though when I find them, maybe this year I will give them some more attention. Liberty caps! You had better be careful! I find lawnmower mushrooms all the time but never anything that bruises blue.

Jason- I have tried muscaria as well and really enjoyed it, they tasted great too. Very calming like you said. Moderation is key because individual mushrooms have different levels of IA muscimol and muscarine depending on variety and conditions. Moderation is just a good thing anyway. They should be out down there in Georgia, I am expecting to see some here shortly. Squirrels dry them out in tree branches to reduce the ibotenic acid! maybe you guys should gel : )

A. muscaria is totally legal in these United States Dom! I am not sure why to be honest, but the saying goes- "never look a gift horse in the mouth." They are for sale on eBay even!

Georgia Bureau of Investigation

Yes!!!!!!!!!!

I heard they can be very nasty

Not much tree cover I was surprised but there was a nice group of fragmitis. Giving them some cover. I find two colored and grey cap with white pores not sure but pretty good close the a cep in the boletes I have never found a king. I keep finding a big one with a red cap like a king but is a yellow pore. That is one that I really want. Out by you though near the museum I find lion main by the river. Look in holes in oak trees. I printed the libertys for purple spore print before I taste. Paul stamets field guid helped. Death angels are pretty scary but have a blue tinge to them and grow close to the woods on the edge of the field not in the middle also have a white spore print. The horse shrooms have a dark brown almost black. I want a giant puff ball this summer too. Also A. Muscaria var fromosa is more potent but A. Pantera is crazy well all soma is weird

I find Boletus atkinsonii, which is supposed to be just like a cep. But they are usually so buggy that I leave them, I never find many anyway.


I never consider eating any red or yellow boletes because of some old saying that I forget at the moment. Old man of the woods is horrible, maybe it was my cooking though.

Yes, the oak trees provide: maitake, chicken of the woods, berkeleys polypore, oysters, lion's mane and boletes. I do almost all of my hunting under trees here. Someone usually brings me at least one puffball from their yard every year! I like the little pear shaped ones that grow on rotted logs more though, they have more flavor.

No not your cooking man of the woods is just very boring. Two color is fantastic!! You eat polypores wowyoir a braver man than I. Right now though I facinated by the amount of wood ears I have growing on a pin oak. You guys have jack o laterns over there I am scared of them. Scared of mixing them up with a hen of the woods or a chantrell. Have you found any black trumpets yet?

There seems to be a few of you guys who know quite a bit about 'shrooms'. I've collected & cooked up a few Morels but I'd really like to know more about some of the others that are edible. Anyone have a good bead on where I could go to get some more quality info on hunting, finding, & identifying some of the more tastey (non-poisonous) ones?

I've heard the ones you find growing in cow pattys are edible but not reccommended - unless you're interested in taking a trip without leaving the farm! This is just all hear-say mind you. 

Jack o Lanterns show up in late september or October after chanterelles and chicken of the woods, also has true gills. Easy to tell apart once you see both, Jack looks more like a pholiota with out scabers. Polypores  are some of the safest mushrooms to identify, there are no poisonous polypores so if you learn the family you are safe, at the worst you cook some mushrooms that taste awful. I found black trumpets once and only a few, they were very tasty, they have not returned where I found them on a steep north facing bank.

Bill- Wildman Steve Brill has a site with great info I would start there, also mushroomexpert.com has identification keys and other reputable places are linked through those sites. An Audubon field guide is invaluable for when you are out looking. Research your target species so you will know where and  when to look and then go get them; do a thorough ID in the field and then check internet resources when you get home, until you are very familiar with the new mushrooms like you are morels. June is a pretty bad month for edible mushrooms, maybe some chicken of the woods will be out early, but July through October is the main season.

Really I didn't know about polypores. I have mushrooms demistifyed thank you for the input. I will do sone reserch into them. Mostly I learned from an old chef that was kind of picky and young Colage years being stupid. So I stick to the mushrooms I know from the culinary field. We will have to grab our baskets and hunt some time

Brent; Excellent additional info. Thanks very much for that. Looks like I have some homework to do before I can throw anything in the cooking pot :-) . 

Bill, there are some good ones that grow in cow pies, you can tell the more "recreational" ones by pinching the stems, if they turn bluish purple and they have a ring "halo" on the stem leftover from the cap, whitish beige cap and black gills, you could be in for a wild ride. I found some psilocybe caps larger than my hand, easily bigger around than a personal pan pizza. Don't care for the results of ingesting them, though, too unpredictable with what can happen. Those were also perfectly legal to possess for "personal use" where I lived as a teenager - something about a supreme court ruling stating you couldn't outlaw a fungus? Dunno.

Rafed, no deadhead here. I spent a lot of time between the woods, citrus fields and cowfields when I was younger, when i wasn't out clubbing till the wee hours of the morning. I met some amazing people and had some wild times, wrassled some mean gators too.

Ps

Don't forget to thump the caps before you pick ;)

The Celt- Yes chicken of the woods is very safe and good to eat. Look for oaks, ashes, maples and tulip tree with rotting hearts and roots. They will fruit for several years after the tree is dead on the ground. They are sporadic with fruiting and can show up in early or late summer. When the log is really decomposed there are lots of wood bits in the mushroom that can make cleaning them difficult. Getting them young is the key to getting nice hunks of mushroom, but the first one you find you should probably observe/leave at least some of the brackets to mature so you can see the pore structure and growth shape. The tips of mature shelves are still good when tender, if you can pinch through it with your finger it is good to eat. Treat it just like chicken with seasoning and cooking time, it does need to be cooked well because there are sulfur compounds that will give you awful gas! And it is one of the mushrooms that a larger percentage of people are allergic to, so everybody at dinner should chew on a tiny piece and then wait to see if their mouth swells. That usually turns people off, but it is a great mushroom and as long as no-one with an allergy gorges there should be no trips to the hospital. Tasting a small piece before eating any new mushroom is smart because people can have allergies to individual mushrooms or mushroom families.
We used to have guided hunts around here but I don't think the guy does them anymore. If something formal comes up around here I will let you know. It is always hard to plan a good mushroom hunt. If you find more than you can pick let me know! It is always interesting and a little confusing to go hunting in a different environment.

Bill- it really is up to everybody to do their own research, what I suggest and talk about are really just "tips". Eating anything out of the wild is dangerous if you don't know what it is. I knew some guy that caught these weird catfish in a pond at a palace in Baghdad then cooked them up and got really sick. Well that happened before i knew them so I don't really know the details, they gave me the rod though and I caught one too, only I kicked the thing off the line. It had an eel tail and milky eyes, and was probably swimming around in sewage, still a catfish though. Catching one of those was enough for me.

Thumping gets 2 thumbs up!