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Hi all,

Could anyone give me any clues as to what these three finds might be. All found in mixed woodland (oak with pine) first two growing on soil, whilst the last was growing on a stump. I'm doing spore prints now. If you could give me a sense of how you ID'd them too, it'd be really useful (I'll work backwards from this to upskill myself).


(The colour hasn't come out great in this - they're orange in surface, gill and stem)

Hi Mark

Just running this quickly off the top of my head without any cross referencing.
Top pic... don’t know
Middle pic... back left, Cep (boletus edulis) front left, clouded clitocybe (clitocybe nebularis).
Bottom pic.. sulphur tuft

Cep... excellent after drying/rehydrating to concentrate the flavour. Can be eaten raw or cooked from fresh but it’s bit tasteless that way.
Clouded clitocybe... listed in some books as edible, others claim it causes gastric problems. I read in an Italian book it causes brain damage unless either boiled twice with a change of water or first dehydrated then boiled.
Sulphur tuft... poisonous, causes severe gastric problems, reportedly can be fatal.

One place to start for id purposes http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/ Have a go at the easy key. Would also be worthwhile checking out a couple of books to take with you on field trips.
Just a note, the sulphies look a bit past their prime. In order to reduce the chances of mistaken id it sometimes helps to look at fruit bodies of varying stages of their development (thinking of the belly-acher cortinarius purpurascens. Young specimens look very much like a wood blewitt, older fruitbodies look nothing like).

Good luck

I'm afraid I'm still a bit "green" to be giving out mushroom ID's which I'm happy with but I'd highly recommend most things from the Boletus Family of mushrooms as only a few are poisonous in the UK and mostly only cause upset stomachs there also pretty difficult to mix up with anything else

You can also use websites like iSpot.org.uk and also wildaboutbritain.co.uk for fungi identifications although both websites have rules against asking for edibility