Mushrooms are really exciting things. The word mushroom is the name given to the fruiting body of the fungus that produces them. Fungus – including ones that produce mushrooms can be incredibly large organisms. In fact, the largest organism on Earth is a fungus http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus . It spans 8.9 km2, is found in Oregon in the USA and is estimated to be 2400 years old!!!. Imagine if you were that mushroom - and that you were one big ear. You could hear loads of conversations at once. Or even if you were not an ear, but could just sense stuff – that would be a whole load of places to be at once. I would like to point out at this moment that mushrooms can not hear.
One of the things that make mushrooms so magical is that they appear from the ground very quickly. One day they are not there – and the next morning they have suddenly appeared. Popped up out of nowhere. Although sometimes if you look carefully you can see mushrooms just pushing up through the soil and undergrowth, normally they are just seen in their fully formed state. The reason for this spectacular property – and the formation of “fairy rings” is that the main part of the fungus is a network of web like material that lives below the ground, which can then fruit when the conditions are right – for example, when it is wet enough.
Another magical thing about them is that they are very unusual looking – they look nothing like other animals or plants, and furthermore there is so much variation between types. So many shapes and sizes and colours.
Some types look so delicate consisting of really thin – sometimes translucent stems, holding up the bigger cap of the mushroom:-
Some are very brightly coloured:
Mushrooms are found up in trees:
...and on the ground
It is easy to get distracted by new samples you did not see before and have suddenly spotted. And suddenly loads of time has passed and it’s time to go home.
I went mushroom hunting in the sandy forests of Fontainbleau in France and this is what I found. I drew lots of pictures of specimens in order to see more clearly some of the key features that help to identify the mushroom more clearly:
A BOLETE – not really sure what type it is. This group of mushroom is interesting to find because it contains a lot of edible types, including the cep, which is very tasty and sought after mushroom. However, not all boletes are edible and furthermore they are hard to distinguish between. Boletes can not be cultivated, they have to be picked in the wild – and this is probably part of the reason they are such a delicacy.
AMINATA SPECIES: In the forest, there was lots of types of this species, including many poisionous and potentially deadly types. Examples of species we saw include:
The FLY AGARIC
And possibly the Death Cap – this is a fatally poisonous mushroom.
The species that I have identified below are edible (if I have indentified them properly). However because there are many poisionous and some fatal mushrooms within the Aminata group it is advised that unless you are really experienced then you don’t pick or eat any of this group. Actually as it is easy to misidentify mushrooms – really I would advise that you don’t eat any wild mushrooms you or someone else has picked unless they have been certified as OK by a professional that has seen them in person (not a photo of them).
THE TAWNY GRISSETE
This was probably the most common species of mushroom that I saw in the forest. The cap flattens with age.
THE PARASOL
UNKNOWN
I especially like the skirt bit on this
EARTHBALLS
The earthball may not look impressive like this:-
...but when I cut into it I was surprised to see it had a dark interior. Then when it is left in contact with the air for about 5 minutes it oozes this watery liquid, white veins start forming and a purply tinge forms a rim around the black interior.
Some poisonous mushrooms just give you a stomach upset. The more poisionous types can be fatal. If you would like to know more about the gory facts of mushroom poisioning, there is loads about this on the internet, including on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_poisoning
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