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New to the fungi hunting game. Looking for some help.


Sweber661

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Alright guys so I admit I know almost nothing about mushrooms and even less about collecting them. What I do know, is for the past week I have been obsessed with trying to identify the mushrooms I've found growing in my new backyard, and I've had zero luck. I've checked every list I could find on common species and variations, and still no luck. I have no training, and no first-person access to an "expert" or guide, but these little guys have me fascinated. Especially the one shaped like a butt.lol That one is just plain weird. And the ones with the frilly, almost flower-like caps. Any help would be greatly appreciated guys. Maybe this is the start of another new hobby for me to spend way too much time on.haha

 

Anyway, here's a little more info:

Location-Acton, CA/Mojave Desert, Sierra Pelona Mountain Range, 

Elevation: Approx. 2,170' ^ Sea Level

The soil is packed with dark wood chips. Something I just noticed the other day. The outer layer is covered in thick patches of moss covering the bare soil. The moss is littered, as you can see, with tiny mushrooms. They almost look like stones, until u peel back the moss and reveal a curiously thick stem, relative to thei size. Around those are almost microscopic grey, white, red, and almost purple mushrooms.   The larger mushrooms are growing in the grass just to the left, and one tiny unknown fungus is growing under and up the base of my cellar access. 

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I'll keep the whole "don't post more than one at a time" rule in mind(my bad, didn't know), but the rest doesn't help.haha All but three are so small I'd have to uproot them to do that, and I'm not down with that idea. Until I can figure out how to make them spread, anyway.lol Any way to get the ID on tiny shrooms without uprooting them?

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Well I guess this venture is a bust then.lol I'd rather preserve them in my garden and not know what they are, than kill them just to find out what kind of mushroom I killed. That kinda defeats the purpose. You'd think there would be some way of differentiating by size, shape, color, location, elevation, setting, etc. That's quite a bit of information.haha

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8 hours ago, Sweber661 said:

Well I guess this venture is a bust then.lol I'd rather preserve them in my garden and not know what they are, than kill them just to find out what kind of mushroom I killed. That kinda defeats the purpose. You'd think there would be some way of differentiating by size, shape, color, location, elevation, setting, etc. That's quite a bit of information.haha

There is no way. There are thousands of varieties of mushrooms and no way of knowing which of the thousand purple mushrooms you might have without uprooting them. You do know that you are not killing the mushroom by picking it right? Picking a mushroom is no more killing it than picking an apple is killing an apple tree. The mushroom is just the fruiting body of a much larger organism growing underground in your yard....but it's up to you.

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You don't need to uproot/harvest every mushroom in a patch of mushrooms. Pick a few, photograph them, save maybe one cap for a spore print and maybe some microscopy (if you have access to a scope), and place the others in a spot where spores may drop. This is likely to help the fungus proliferate.  

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The mushroom is also more than just the fruiting body. The mushroom is a network of mycelium spread out over a large amount of material under ground or in the tree. Even if you pick every single one, I'd bet they'd be in no short supply.

 Picking a few to properly ID them is the best direction you can take to learn. Even if you want to cultivate more, it means you can get a better idea on how to provide ideal conditions

Mushroom mycelium can be truly massive. The world's largest organism is a honey mushroom, spanning over two miles under ground. Fruiting bodies can be found over this whole span.

Another practice people commit to sometimes is after cleaning up the mushrooms, the remains are brought back to, or spread at a new location

 

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