Hi everyone,
Today is a happy day for me because I have spent many, many hours going through my fall pictures and I finally reached a point where pointless guessing is all that remains.
I never approached my task like a mycologist. Though my pictures were pretty detailed, I often did not take a spore print, and I had to judge the habitat by the general area where the pictures were taken. I went with the approach where I assumed that I had a fairly common mushroom in front of me that would probably show up in one of my three main guides (not a valid assumption, of course) and took it from there. With some genii like Marasmius or Psathyrella or my boletes I have certainly gotten some wrong. Having said that, using multiple guides along with the internet narrowed things down a lot. You can use multiple photos to compare features that don't show up in every picture, and allow for color changes due to lighting or maturity of the specimen. MushroomExpert is also extremely useful. I also looked up the homepages of some Japanese amateurs who have posted large collections of finds, and those help a lot with things like boletes. Plus a lot of mushrooms are unmistakable--for example, the Psathyrellas are hard to identify in general, but velutina is not.
This was my haul: Agaricus praeclaresquamosus Agrocybe arvalis, Agrocybe cylindracea Amanita abrupta, Amanita alboflavescens, Amanita ceciliae, Amanita citrine, Amanita longistriata, Amanita pantherina, Amanita rubescens, Amanita psuedoporphyria, Amanita vaginata , Amanita virgineodes, Amanita virosa Auricularia auricular, Auricularia polytricha Boletellus emodensis, Boletellus obscurecoccineus Boletus mirabilis, Boletus obscureumbrinus, Boletus pulverulentus, Boletus reticulatus, Boletus subvelutipes Calvatia craniiformis Chlorophyllum molybdites Collybia confluens Coltricia cinnamomea Coprinus atramentarius, Coprinus disseminatus, Coprinus lagopus, Coprinus comatus Coriolus trametes Coriolus versicolor Cyathus stercoreus Entoloma murraii, Entoloma staurosporum Galiella celebica Ganoderma lucidum, Ganoderma tsugae Gerronema fibula Gymnopilus liquiritiae, Gymnopilus aeruginosus, Gymnopilus penetrans Gyroporous punctatus Hydnum repandum Hygrocybe conica, Hygrocybe cuspidata Hypholoma fasciculare Inocybe napipes, Inocybe asterospora Laccaria bicolor, Laccaria vinaceoavellanea Lactarius chrysorrheus, Lactarius hygrophoroides Lactarius subzonarius, Lactarius volemus Leccinum extremiorientale Lentinus edodes Leucoagaricus rubrotinctus, Leucocoprinus fragilissimus Leocoprinus bresadolae Lycoperdon perlatum Marasmiellus candidus Marasmius maximus, Marasmius pulcherripes, Marasmius oreades Mycena galericulata, Mycena polygramma Mycena pura Naematoloma squamosum Omphalina epichysium Oudemansiella pudens Panaeolus fimicola, Panaeolus subbalteatus Phallus impudicus, Phallus rugolosus Phellinus robustus Pholiota adiposa Piptoporous betulinus Pleurocybella porrigens Pleurotus ostreatus Pluteus atricapillus, Pluteus leoninus Polyporellus badius Polyporis alveolaris Psathyrella condolleana, Psathyrella gracilis, Psathyrella multissima, Psathyrella velutina Pycnoporous coccineus Russula foetens, Russula virescens Stobilurus oshimae Stropharia aeruginosa, Stropharia semiglobata, Stropharia rugosoannulata Thelophora terrestris Trichaptum biforme Trichoglossum hirsutum Tricholomopsis rutilans Xanthoconium affine Xercomus subtomentosus Xeromphalina campanella
While all these photos have gotten me familiar with overall families, next season I am going to write things down--I don't think you can improve past a certain point unless you keep careful records. This season I got interested in a Japanese guy called Minakata Kumagusu. He went over to the states and then England at the end of the 19th Century, and started collecting mushrooms when he was over there. (He also got kicked out of every college he attended for drinking and fighting.) I went to the museum dedicated to him recently and was fascinated to find this specimen that he had id-ed 100 years ago. (I wasn't supposed to take a photo, but here was a Japanese psilocybe right in front of my eyes!)
 He thinks that he has cyanscens, but he obviously has Psilocybe argentipes. http://tulostoma.3.pro.tok2.com/ajiwai_kinoko/hikagesibiretake.htm He did it all in English....Anyway his detailed notes have inspired me--this is going to be my last season of the shotgun approach.
From April I will be actually working for a living so I will not be posting. For those that patiently helped with all my ids, it was appreciated.
-------------------- Wallace
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Nice work, A lot of times just being able to determine a genus is as far as you can go without extensive resources, lab equipment, and expensive microscopes. Knowing a genus is very useful. In a lot of cases knowing what exact species that you have is unnecessary and will require a lot of time/effort which you may not want to invest unless you are purely into the exact science of things. I find that I am interested in the exacts of things.. well at least I try to go as far as I can, even when knowing ahead of time that a specimen is not going to be of edible value.
-------------------- Immortal / Temporarily Retired The OG Thread Killer My mushroom hunting gallery
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