Re:In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Fora...
by matwood on Sunday March 20, 2016 @06:04PM
(#11324896)
Given how hard wild mushrooms can be to identify, I'm surprised that there are people who pick and eat them.
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Re:In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Fora...
by pluteoid on Sunday March 20, 2016 @07:25PM
(#11325212)
Correctly identifying any given mushroom can be hard, requiring the right taxonomic keys (and the comprehensive ones come in multiple volumes), a microscope, various stains and reagents, and lots of training. Field mycologists have a term, LBM, meaning "little brown mushroom", which speaks to the pain of separating such specimens to species level even with lots of ID experience.
On the other hand there are many edible species which are unmistakeable and which you can quickly learn to reliably identify based on obvious features. In many European countries, foraging for wild mushrooms is a traditional pastime and intimately linked with national cuisine.
Re:In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Fora...
by maxerickson on Sunday March 20, 2016 @06:21PM
(#11324963)
It isn't that hard, you just have to be careful not to overestimate your knowledge of the mushrooms where you are picking.
There are many varieties that can be visually identified with very high confidence after only moderate practice. Fortunately morels fall into this category, they're delicious. It's true that there are mushrooms that can be confused with morels, but it's also true that it doesn't take all that much practice to understand the differences.