Yeah, I carefully read the description of its distinguishing features, studied the photo, and concluded I have no idea what I’m looking at and how to tell them apart.
I’m really good at spotting differences or inconsistencies, I’m totally lost with mushrooms though, and I go multiple times every Autumn with a woman in her 70’s. She is very clear about what we are looking for. She throws out at least half of what I gather.
Lots of differences but the simplest one would be that button mushrooms would typically have color to their gills—depending on the species they usually start out pinkish or pale brown and move to dark brown as they get older. Destroying angel has pure white gills.
But button mushrooms are actually not very beginner friendly despite their familiarity since there are other poisonous lookalikes in many areas.
My wife wanted to take a foraging class and I pointed out all the similarities and said to her, if you don’t want to buy mushrooms from the store, we can just grow them.
The two mentioned species are pretty easy to distinguish once you get familiar with them (based on gills, spores and the stem base). But I would never rely on an app to make the decision for me! If you exclusively go for easier groups where there are no life threatening species in your area (boletes where I life), you should be pretty safe.
Looking over the wikipedia page on this mushroom and all the similar, very edible ones…Yeah I’m never foraging mushrooms.
Yeah, I carefully read the description of its distinguishing features, studied the photo, and concluded I have no idea what I’m looking at and how to tell them apart.
I’m really good at spotting differences or inconsistencies, I’m totally lost with mushrooms though, and I go multiple times every Autumn with a woman in her 70’s. She is very clear about what we are looking for. She throws out at least half of what I gather.
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Cool, I think you just saved me a bit of time.
Do these conditions have anything to do with a person’s ability to identify mushrooms
Very likely. Experience is a thing
If she’s that old and likes to forage there’s only so many bad mushrooms you can eat
Also, women tend to have better natural color distinction, they more prominently have a genetic mutation that adds a 4th color cone.
Additionally men are significantly more likely to have some form of colorblindness.
Age also can have an effect on your perception of the world as well as the objective quality of your vision.
Finally, describing the subject of the sentence is normal.
I didn’t know most of that, cool
If someone goes mushroom gathering multiple times a year, getting to live until 70 speaks volumes about her ability.
Well, she’s not dead yet so that’s a good sign.
Simple, just eat it and see.
If you’re dead, it’s poisonous.
If you are alive, you haven’t eaten enough.
This.
I’ll just trust the dealer.
Mushroom lesson I did says that looking under the cap, spore color, what tree root system it’s growing in, can give you a really solid ID
Is the main visual difference just the stem or whatever it’s called being much longer?
Lots of differences but the simplest one would be that button mushrooms would typically have color to their gills—depending on the species they usually start out pinkish or pale brown and move to dark brown as they get older. Destroying angel has pure white gills.
But button mushrooms are actually not very beginner friendly despite their familiarity since there are other poisonous lookalikes in many areas.
“Destroying Angel” is an incredibly metal name for a mushroom lmao.
My wife wanted to take a foraging class and I pointed out all the similarities and said to her, if you don’t want to buy mushrooms from the store, we can just grow them.
The two mentioned species are pretty easy to distinguish once you get familiar with them (based on gills, spores and the stem base). But I would never rely on an app to make the decision for me! If you exclusively go for easier groups where there are no life threatening species in your area (boletes where I life), you should be pretty safe.