Mushroom Identification: Best Advice for Beginners

It was about thirty years ago that I started to get serious about learning my mushrooms. At that time the North American Mycological Association polled all of its members about what advice they would give to foragers just starting out.

Here are the top 5 answers - 1: Use mushroom field guides. 2: Take a mushroom course. 3: Go with experienced foragers. 4: Keep good field notes.   5: Join a mycological society.  6: Martin's tip: Learn your Latin.

1. Buy and use good field guides. There are lots of good field guides, to purchase new, to borrow  from a Library or to buy used. Most fall into three categories:

    • General introduction to mushrooms across North America. My three favourites in order of preference would be Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora, The Complete Mushroom Hunter by Gary Lincoff,  and North American Mushrooms by Orson Miller. All of these books are older and many of the mushroom names have changed (due to DNA work), but the actual mushrooms are still the same. These books all have a good introduction and cover most of the common edible and poisonous mushrooms you should know. 
        • Mushrooms from your locale. Here in Alberta (or the Canadian Prairies) the best by far is Mushrooms of Western Canada by Helene Schalkwijk (AKA  Mushrooms of Northwest North America).  She was an Edmontonian and her book has 550 species of mushrooms she personally found, most all of them from our area. The delightful watercolour illustrations have each brush stroke showing you all the features you need to be mindful of, from a red-staining wormhole to specific tree needles stuck to a mushroom cap. (If you are in BC, then it's Mushrooms of British Columbia by Andy MacKinnon and Kem Luther.)
            • c) Mushroom ID and pseudo cookbooks. Sure, these are fun and give motivation to go out and pick, plus some inspiration on how to prepare some edible mushrooms. These books will pile up over the years but won’t teach you a lot.

              2. Take a mushroom course. These courses are often very hard to find. They should be held in mushroom seasons where you and a group of students can see the variation in each mushroom species. For most people it is shocking to see the variability but each mushroom has something that gives it away. It is akin to going out with an experienced picker but much more intense. Because these courses are difficult to find, MartinOnMushrooms is holding a series of them throughout the mushroom season.

              3. Go out with experienced pickers. Best Advice Ever! Whether you have the fortune to go out and learn from someone like Leni Schalkwijk or your grandmother or one of your neighbours, having someone to show you where mushrooms grow and how you can spot them is best. If they take a bit of time to explain to you just what features they are looking for, this makes for a long-lasting teaching moment. If you are going out with an expert, stick by their side, write down those mushroom names, ask what the name means, pay attention when they struggle with an ID. You probably would as well. Or just going with someone who can show you what a honey mushroom looks like. Remember we can only learn them one at a time.

              4. Keep field notes (complete with pictorial record). At a course that I took a long time ago the instructor brought out sketch pads and coloured pencils. When you make these drawings and record all the minor details along with agonizing over what colour it actually is, not only informs you but etches the information in your mind. But it goes beyond what it just looks like to include taste, smell, consistency (brittle or rubbery), bruising, among other characters that can’t be captured by photo alone. Keeping a record of when and where you found any particular mushroom allows you to head back or look for the same type of habitat at the same type of year. Include weather reports? Great!

              5. Join a Mycological Society. Joining a Mycological Society allows you access to go on mushroom forays. There are always people who know a few mushrooms each and if there are ten of those people at a foray, that equals more mushrooms than you can learn in any one outing. Most Societies have educational programming, and some offer mushroom courses and can sell you the local field guides. A one-stop shop for all of these suggestions:  in Alberta we have the Alberta Mycological Society; the next one to the east is Toronto. Not everyone can be as fortunate to have an active Society in their neighbourhood.

              Here is one more suggestion that I want to add.

              6. Learn to use the scientific names (Latin or Greek) . Most people hate this and that is the reason that all publishers ask their field guide writers to list the common names. Because there are very few true universal common names, authors are forced to invent names. So now instead of having one difficult scientific name to learn you can end up with a dozen different ones. 

              But it is also about more than just a name. With scientific names comes a system of classification which lumps mushrooms together with their relatives and often with their look-alikes. In a grocery store things are organized in a way you can find them down the correct aisle and on the right shelf. Imagine if all those items were stacked randomly as they were shipped to the store. No, classify them, stack them all together and write it down on a map, kind of like a good mushroom book.

              Starting out can be daunting, but it is one mushroom at a time. Get to know as much as you can about that one. I would love to have you come out on a walk or participate in a mushroom course.

              If you have additional good advice for new mushroom foragers, please comment below. Thank you!

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