Fab walking stick Foxfish! The book my friend used was not the one at the link above. It is "Easy Edible Mushroom Guide" by Prof. David Pegler -- we all like it (inc. a Polish colleague -- mushrooms traditional Polish fare). I will add a link later. The attraction of this book is that it had a both coloured drawings and colour photographs in a very user friendly format (similar to the Collins book).
Here is the book as seen on Amazon, although my friend's copy has a completely different cover (green, band at top & photo on front):
I too did a little mountain bike ride/mushroom collecting on Sunday. Interesting to see you have conkers. I checked sweet chestnuts but they are still a few weeks off here, I think conkers are usually a little earlier. I collected several fungi to practice identification. The most edible being some Puff Balls -- they could pass as soft puffballs (Lycoperdon Molle) but I think more likely Stump Puffballs (lycoperdon pyriforme) as they were growing on wood. I got a very positive id. based on the photograph in the Philip Rogers book on one mystery fungus and its distinctive fishy smell (Milk White Brittlegill = Russula delica). Another one might have been honey cap but too indistinct to risk. Another was identical to the Pholiota image in Roger Phillip's image index - unfortunately none of the images of specific sub-species looked like it! (Scaly Cap/Shaggy Parasol/Shaggy Pholiota/Pholiota squarros? - none worth eating). I plan to try the puffballs, having had a couple of other people confirm the identification (only the ones that are still white inside - BTW they smell distinctly of regular field mushrooms when you split them open).
Here is the book as seen on Amazon, although my friend's copy has a completely different cover (green, band at top & photo on front):
I too did a little mountain bike ride/mushroom collecting on Sunday. Interesting to see you have conkers. I checked sweet chestnuts but they are still a few weeks off here, I think conkers are usually a little earlier. I collected several fungi to practice identification. The most edible being some Puff Balls -- they could pass as soft puffballs (Lycoperdon Molle) but I think more likely Stump Puffballs (lycoperdon pyriforme) as they were growing on wood. I got a very positive id. based on the photograph in the Philip Rogers book on one mystery fungus and its distinctive fishy smell (Milk White Brittlegill = Russula delica). Another one might have been honey cap but too indistinct to risk. Another was identical to the Pholiota image in Roger Phillip's image index - unfortunately none of the images of specific sub-species looked like it! (Scaly Cap/Shaggy Parasol/Shaggy Pholiota/Pholiota squarros? - none worth eating). I plan to try the puffballs, having had a couple of other people confirm the identification (only the ones that are still white inside - BTW they smell distinctly of regular field mushrooms when you split them open).
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