It would be irresponsible of me to start any blog on foraging for fungi, without first paying particular attention to the dangers associated with these beautiful 'jewels of the forest'! Amongst the many thousands of species that can be found, there are many that are edible. Indeed not just edible but truly delicious when cooked up and served on top of a few slices of toast, or fried in a light tempura batter!
But with many wild edibles, where nature provides with one hand, it taketh away with the other. In the case of mushrooms, making the wrong choice, or incorrectly identifying a specimen that you plan to eat, or perhaps more horrific to think about, serving something up to a loved one without being 110% certain of what it is, can have literally deadly consequences. 'If in doubt, leave it out.' is a phrase that is used widely with regards to wild edibles, and it is a phrase that one neglects at ones peril where mushrooms are concerned! Simply teaching yourself with the aid of a field guide and a degree of trial and error to boot, is not acceptible. If you are going to hunt and forage for mushrooms, make sure you have been on a course, had the benefit of a good teacher (the emphasis being on 'good'!), who knows what they are doing with the backing of years of experience. Learn to correctly identify both the good AND the nasty types that you may come across, and do not leave out any of the methods used to identify fungi, whether that be concerning the cap, the stipe (stem) volva, gills or spore print, amongst others.
On the subject of enrolling on and attending a course, I also want to point out that I do not in ANY way shape or form consider myself an expert now that I have been on one. I fully recognise that this is a lifelong journey of discovery, and all I can do as each year comes and goes, is learn a little more each time I go out, about these beautiful fruits of the mycelium that grow beneath our feet. Mycelium form the largest organism on the planet, sometimes hundreds of square miles in size and footprint, they require some very precise conditions in order to fruit and there are literally thousands and thousands of different varieties. Enrolling on a course gives you a foundation to go away and learn to discover more by yourself, it does not give you all the tools to be able to identify everything you see, all the time, every time.
But with many wild edibles, where nature provides with one hand, it taketh away with the other. In the case of mushrooms, making the wrong choice, or incorrectly identifying a specimen that you plan to eat, or perhaps more horrific to think about, serving something up to a loved one without being 110% certain of what it is, can have literally deadly consequences. 'If in doubt, leave it out.' is a phrase that is used widely with regards to wild edibles, and it is a phrase that one neglects at ones peril where mushrooms are concerned! Simply teaching yourself with the aid of a field guide and a degree of trial and error to boot, is not acceptible. If you are going to hunt and forage for mushrooms, make sure you have been on a course, had the benefit of a good teacher (the emphasis being on 'good'!), who knows what they are doing with the backing of years of experience. Learn to correctly identify both the good AND the nasty types that you may come across, and do not leave out any of the methods used to identify fungi, whether that be concerning the cap, the stipe (stem) volva, gills or spore print, amongst others.
On the subject of enrolling on and attending a course, I also want to point out that I do not in ANY way shape or form consider myself an expert now that I have been on one. I fully recognise that this is a lifelong journey of discovery, and all I can do as each year comes and goes, is learn a little more each time I go out, about these beautiful fruits of the mycelium that grow beneath our feet. Mycelium form the largest organism on the planet, sometimes hundreds of square miles in size and footprint, they require some very precise conditions in order to fruit and there are literally thousands and thousands of different varieties. Enrolling on a course gives you a foundation to go away and learn to discover more by yourself, it does not give you all the tools to be able to identify everything you see, all the time, every time.
I was very fortunate to receive from my wife one Christmas, the gift of a place on a course run by River Cottage, delivered by one of this countries foremost experts on fungi, John Wright. If I ever learn as much as John has forgotten about fungi in my lifetime I will consider myself to have done quite well, the guy just reels off information about the good and the nasty ones as if it was all scripted! I will not do a review of the course itself, I think that if you do decide to go on a course, you could do an awful lot worse than go on the River Cottage day, and I will leave it entirely up to you to experience it yourself. What I will do here is say simply that I made a cosncious decision on the day, not to try and learn to identify all the 'small brown' toadstools that we came across, but to look for and learn the varieties that were edible, and more importantly, the varieties where it was easy to identify the features that would determine its edibility. Using this approach I managed to come away with about 15 different varieties that I was absolutely 110% confident I would be able to identify again, and if I offered one piece of advise to anyone going on a course, I would suggest doing the same.
So, the point of this blog entry was also to give an overview of the last few weeks worth of hunting around! In the few years that I have been actively searching for and seeking out mushrooms, this has by far and away been the most fruitful...see what I did there! ;-)... year that I have had so far. I dont know whether its been the fact that it has been so wet, with significant rainfal throughout the summer months or what, but they just seem to be coming up in an abundance I could never have expected! I have 4 main places that I go hunting for fungi, all places that I have been many times before, and all places where I have come across a number of varieties in the past. The woods behind my house, Black Park Country Park, Burnham Beeches and Marlow Common woods, all of which have different varieties that seem to be more prominent.
The woods behind my house have delivered numerous Magpie Inkcaps, along with nice blankets of huge funnel mushrooms that I have yet to identify, and one tree in particular that seems to get absolutely covered in Porcelaine fungus. I have also found numerous varieties of Puffball here as well, so thats what we will have a picture of directly below...
The woods behind my house have delivered numerous Magpie Inkcaps, along with nice blankets of huge funnel mushrooms that I have yet to identify, and one tree in particular that seems to get absolutely covered in Porcelaine fungus. I have also found numerous varieties of Puffball here as well, so thats what we will have a picture of directly below...
Black Park Country Park this year has perhaps given me the largest variety in terms of sheer numbers of different mushrooms, and I wont even attempt to name them, but what I have found there before are Chanterelle, Porcini or Penny Bun mushrooms, along with some of the Bolete family. Amongst the most colourful, and one of my personal favourites, the Amethyst Deceiver has been found in blankets across the woodland floor, so thats the next one we will have a picture of...
Maybe because of the size of the woodland itself, and like Black Park in being of a huge size, Burnham Beeches comes a close second in terms on the number of variety of mushrooms I have found. As well as the Amethyst Deceiver, I have come across a load of funnel varieties, what I think may have been a few different types of Dapperlings, one or two of what I thought were from the Amanita family, along with a vast number of different types of bracket fungus. The one that really rocked my boat this year though, was one type that really confused me at the time, but has since been identified upon the advice of a fellow YouTuber, Ade from NorthwestBushcraft, as being the Wood Blewit, an edible, and apparently delicious mushroom that I will be looking for again, so thats the one we will have a picture of below...
Marlow Common Woods was a real surprise this year. I have been there in precious years and found a few 'penny buns' as well as a really nice patch of Fly Agaric, which is the variety in the very top picture, and what many consider to be the typical 'toadstool' from childrens books for example. This year the Boletes were in fine form with three of four littering the floor every few feet or so where I cared to look. There were carpets of Amethyst deceiver yet again, and many many Puffballs were found as well, some of a really good size, but for the final picture I think I will go back to the Bolete that I think I correctly identified as either the Bay Bolete or the Yellow Cracking Bolete. I wasnt sure so I didnt harvest! Here its is anyway!...
If you would like to watch the three videos that I produced for my YouTube channel, where I take you round some of the locations in which I found some of the more interesting species, have a look by clicking on the following links below:
Video 1: Mushroom Hunting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVdx5v9FGhY&feature=plcp
Video 2: Fungal Foray - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3fLo3Yl1HQ&feature=plcp
Video 3: Final Fungi Finds - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHrZPbViE4g&feature=plcp
Video 1: Mushroom Hunting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVdx5v9FGhY&feature=plcp
Video 2: Fungal Foray - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3fLo3Yl1HQ&feature=plcp
Video 3: Final Fungi Finds - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHrZPbViE4g&feature=plcp
Hunting for mushrooms is becoming a real fascination for me now, along with as much information on the medicinal properties of them as I can absorb. If you have the time, and you can afford it, I would thoroughly recommend getting yourself on a course and learning a bit about this new world that was opened up to me. I can honestly say it has become a complete fascination for me, and has taken something that I considered just to be a delicious foodstuff, into the realms of being a hobby! I hope this piece, and my videos, may inspire at least one other person to put aside any fears they may have of fungi in general, and see them for what they really are! Absolutely fascinating!