Does anyone have a site for mushroom identification?

There are a number of sites on the web just for that. Just go to any search engine and type into the search box, 'mushroom identification'. Here are two good ones:

http://www.mushroom-appreciati...

http://americanmushrooms.com/i...

Another way I look for ID of mushrooms is to go to google images and type in a short description such as 'red mushroom with white spots'.

Thanks for the sites. I'm checking them out hoping to find the one I have. Dee

If you want to go with a print book, one of the best guides around is by David Aurora: Mushrooms Demystified
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0898151694/
Ouch! If I'd had any idea how valuable that book was, I would never have let go of the spare copy I had!

Edited to say: Oops, misspelled his name there! Hey, that was my dog's name; I'm entitled to mess it up! LOL!

I could use a good book on mushrooms. Maybe I'll check it out. Thanks.

Identifying mushrooms is a tricky business. When I lived in SoCal, I belonged to a mushroom hunting group associated with the Natural History Museum there, and that book is the guide they recommended.

Books may be fine but if you intend to eat the mushroom it is best to learn from an ''old'' hunter that actually eat what they hunt.

Heh, I think I'd want both!

"Old hunters" are not necessarily the last word .. I remember when I was working at the U of F State Museum there was a mycologist (a rather famous one at that) next door to the paleo range where I worked who gathered some mushrooms and added them to spaghetti sauce he was making for company. About 45 minutes after eating they were all in the hospital getting their stomachs pumped!

I guess the question has to be asked did he/she eat the sauce too?

I have learned from my Mom and she from her Mom. My Mom now 83 and still hunting some of the same land she grew up on . I would not dare hunt in parts of the country I was not use to.

Another odd thing I seem to recall (don't quote my feeble memory on this--it's been over 25 years ago!) is that the same mushroom can be toxic in one area of the country and perfectly safe in another area. Seems to me like that was sort of an east coast vs west coast thing, not areas in close proximity.

woofie said:Another odd thing I seem to recall (don't quote my feeble memory on this--it's been over 25 years ago!)....

More likely, there are east and west coast counterparts of the "same mushroom" that look the same, but are actually different.
This is common in the plant world.

As I said before, mushroom ID can be tricky. I wonder if they've developed more definitive ways to identify them now. Think anyone is doing mushroom DNA analyses?

You can bet they are mapping fungus genomes .. they started mapping plant genomes about 6 years ago and some of the results have caused quite an uproar in the plant world.

Ann, do you have a link/links on the plant genome studies?

Unfortunately no .. wish I did.

valleylynn said:Ann, do you have a link/links on the plant genome studies?

Gosh, there are multitudes of studies. Except for the end results, they can be quite boring. This might be a representative example:

Contributions to a molecular phylogeny and systematics of Anemone and related genera

Most of them (as is this one) are in pdf format that you need to download to read.

-- Edited to say "oops!". I wasn't thinking about fungi in particular. Haven't seen any of those, but haven't looked either. Always best to use Google Scholar rather than plain Google for this kind of stuff.