There isn't really a way apart from identifying them individually and then looking up if they are poisonous. My analogy is that trying to identify poisonous mushrooms is like trying to identify books which use the word 'preternaturally' (or any other distinctive word). You can probably make an educated guess that some books will or won't contain it, and the more books you read, the better you can get at prediciting, but there's no hard and fast rule.
I love giant puff balls, as you say, a way of eating garlic and butter.just read “the forbidden garden of Leningrad” they ate everything during the siege. Recommended
Mushroom foraging is very popular here, and although I've never done it myself, I have eaten lobster mushrooms foraged by others, and friends forage chanterelles and morels. We have too many species of amanita for my liking, including some spectacular specimens of amanita muscaria 🍄. An island couple ate the wrong kind a couple of years ago, perhaps in search of a psychedelic effect, and fortunately had the presence of mind to call for an ambulance when they felt their legs going numb.
The vacant lot next to us yields us fifty pounds or so of invasive Himalayan blackberries for the freezer every year, as well as scratched arms and bloody thumbs! I'll also forage wild blueberries - watch out for bears - and salmon berries. We have abundant poison hemlock. Our native early spring "weeds" include chickweed, purple dead nettle, and miner's lettuce, all distinctive, and all early food for pollinators, herbivores, and humans, although I haven't tried them myself.
I'm very partial to both chickweed and miner's lettuce. I planted seed of miner's lettuce and let it naturalise in my garden. I just forage it from there. Mostly just to nibble though.
I do have some nice wood ear fungus that I foraged from the park, which I'll fry up at some stage. One of the first fungi I foraged, as there's nothing else like it. I did learn from following mushroom id groups online that beginners can confuse it with something inedible, but only if they don't pay attention to where it's growing - if it's not growing on wood, it's not a wood ear.
Thanks for all that but I'm still in the dark as to how to identify poisonous mushrooms. I will have to stick with the supermarket varieties
There isn't really a way apart from identifying them individually and then looking up if they are poisonous. My analogy is that trying to identify poisonous mushrooms is like trying to identify books which use the word 'preternaturally' (or any other distinctive word). You can probably make an educated guess that some books will or won't contain it, and the more books you read, the better you can get at prediciting, but there's no hard and fast rule.
I love giant puff balls, as you say, a way of eating garlic and butter.just read “the forbidden garden of Leningrad” they ate everything during the siege. Recommended
Thanks for the recommendation. Sounds very interesting!
Mushroom foraging is very popular here, and although I've never done it myself, I have eaten lobster mushrooms foraged by others, and friends forage chanterelles and morels. We have too many species of amanita for my liking, including some spectacular specimens of amanita muscaria 🍄. An island couple ate the wrong kind a couple of years ago, perhaps in search of a psychedelic effect, and fortunately had the presence of mind to call for an ambulance when they felt their legs going numb.
The vacant lot next to us yields us fifty pounds or so of invasive Himalayan blackberries for the freezer every year, as well as scratched arms and bloody thumbs! I'll also forage wild blueberries - watch out for bears - and salmon berries. We have abundant poison hemlock. Our native early spring "weeds" include chickweed, purple dead nettle, and miner's lettuce, all distinctive, and all early food for pollinators, herbivores, and humans, although I haven't tried them myself.
Thank as always for an informative article!
I'm very partial to both chickweed and miner's lettuce. I planted seed of miner's lettuce and let it naturalise in my garden. I just forage it from there. Mostly just to nibble though.
I do have some nice wood ear fungus that I foraged from the park, which I'll fry up at some stage. One of the first fungi I foraged, as there's nothing else like it. I did learn from following mushroom id groups online that beginners can confuse it with something inedible, but only if they don't pay attention to where it's growing - if it's not growing on wood, it's not a wood ear.
Are chickweed and miner's lettuce native there?