Frequently asked questions

No. Never eat any wild fungus identified only from an app, photo, or single feature — including a ForageGB consensus ID or AI suggestion. Always confirm with an experienced, independent forager or mycologist and a good printed field guide before eating anything, and never rely on one identification alone. The app is a learning and recording tool, not a safety check.

A spore print shows the colour of a mushroom's spores en masse, which is a key identification feature. Cut the cap from the stem, place it gills- or pores-down on a piece of paper (half white, half black works well), cover with a glass or bowl to stop draughts, and leave for several hours to overnight. The deposit's colour — white, pink, brown, purple-black and so on — helps narrow down the genus, but it is only one clue among several, never a final answer on its own.

These describe how a fungus produces and releases its spores underneath the cap. Gills are thin, blade-like plates radiating from the stem (most classic mushrooms). Pores are a spongy layer of tiny tubes opening as holes (boletes, polypores). Teeth are soft spines or icicle-like projections (tooth fungi). Noting which type you're looking at — along with colour, spacing and attachment to the stem — is one of the first steps in narrowing an identification, but should always be combined with other features, not used alone.

Learn to recognise the death cap (Amanita phalloides) and destroying angel (Amanita virosa) before anything else — both contain amatoxins that cause delayed, often fatal liver failure, and a single cap can kill. Also learn the funeral bell (Galerina marginata) and fool's funnel (Clitocybe rivulosa), both deadly look-alikes for edible species. Knowing these well, and the safe species they're confused with, is one of the best ways to stay safe — but it does not replace expert confirmation before eating anything.

No — not on its own. Photos can't capture smell, texture, spore colour, habitat, or how a specimen bruises or stains, and AI tools (including ForageGB's optional AI pre-screen in the ID Workbench) only ever offer an advisory hint, never a safety check. Deadly species frequently look near-identical to edible ones in a photo. Always cross-check multiple physical features in hand against a field guide, and get an experienced second opinion before eating anything.

If symptoms are severe (collapse, breathing difficulty, severe vomiting) call 999/112 immediately. For other symptoms, call NHS 111 (Wales: 111.wales.nhs.uk; Scotland: NHS 24/111). Keep a sample of the fungus — ideally the whole specimen, photographed and refrigerated, not cooked or thrown away — since identifying it helps treatment. Some toxins, including those in the death cap, cause symptoms only after a delay of many hours, so don't assume you're fine just because you feel okay at first. Do not induce vomiting unless a medical professional tells you to. See our suspected poisoning guide for full steps.

Generally yes. Under the Theft Act 1968 s.4(3), picking wild fungi for personal, non-commercial use is not theft. However, the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 makes it an offence to uproot any wild plant or fungus without the landowner's permission, and a small number of protected (Schedule 8) species can't be picked at all. You also need the landowner's or occupier's permission to be on the land in the first place, and rules differ between England, Wales and Scotland. See our UK foraging law guide for details.

There's no single statutory limit, but the long-standing Wild Mushroom Pickers' Code of Conduct (1998) recommends taking no more than around 1.5 kg, or half the fruitbodies present at a spot — whichever is less — and only picking what you're confident you can identify and will actually use. Leave plenty for spore dispersal, wildlife, and other foragers. Picking for sale or other commercial use is treated very differently and often requires landowner permission or a licence.

It depends on the landowner's own policy, so always check before you go. National Trust land generally allows small-scale personal picking under its foraging policy, but local rules can vary by site. Forestry England permits personal-use picking under its Forest Fungi Code, while commercial picking is banned. Council-owned land, nature reserves and SSSIs often have their own restrictions or require permission. When in doubt, check signage or contact the landowner directly.

England and Wales share the same core legislation: the Theft Act 1968 and Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981, plus the CRoW Act 2000 right to roam, which gives a right to walk on open access land but not a right to forage there without permission. Scotland is more permissive: the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Scottish Outdoor Access Code grant statutory responsible access, which generally allows personal-use foraging on most land, though commercial picking still needs permission. In all three nations, protected species and SSSIs remain off-limits.

An SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) is a legally protected area designated for its wildlife, geology, or habitat value. Picking fungi within an SSSI is generally an offence without the relevant authority's consent, even where picking would otherwise be allowed nearby. Always check a site's status before foraging — many popular woodlands are SSSIs in part or whole.

Yes. Species listed on Schedule 8 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 are fully protected, and the personal-use defence under the Theft Act does not apply to them — picking is an offence regardless of intent. More broadly, species on the GB Red List for Fungi are under conservation concern and should be left untouched and simply recorded (photographed, logged) rather than collected. If you're unsure whether something is rare, treat it as one to photograph and leave.

A wicker basket or open container (so spores can disperse and specimens don't sweat in plastic), a small knife for clean cuts, a soft brush for cleaning, greaseproof paper or paper bags to separate species, and a good field guide. A hand lens helps with finer features, and a notebook or the ForageGB Logbook is useful for recording habitat, date and photos for later reference.

Cut or gently twist specimens rather than digging up the whole mycelium, stick to existing paths where possible, and avoid trampling moss, leaf litter and deadwood, which are vital fungal habitat. Take only what you need, leave plenty of fruitbodies for spore dispersal and wildlife, and don't disturb the surrounding area while inspecting a find. Replace any logs or bark you move.

Many deadly species closely resemble popular edibles at certain stages of growth — for example, young death caps can resemble puffballs or edible Amanitas, and funeral bells can resemble honey fungus. A single shared feature (cap colour, gill shape) is not enough to tell them apart; the differences are often in spore print colour, stem base, smell, or habitat. This is exactly why no single identification feature, photo, or app result should ever be trusted alone before eating something.

Individual features — cap colour, gill colour, even spore print — can overlap heavily between deadly and edible species, and can vary with age, weather and habitat. Safe identification means checking multiple, independent features together (cap, gills/pores, stem, base, smell, spore print, habitat, season) and cross-referencing a field guide and an experienced person. This is also why ForageGB's consensus IDs and AI suggestions are learning aids, not a substitute for that full, careful process.

Autumn (September to November) is the peak season for most fruiting fungi in the UK, especially after a wet spell following a warm summer. That said, some species fruit in spring (like St George's mushroom) or even through winter (like velvet shank), so it varies by species. The home page's In season near you / Flushing now feature gives a rough, region-level guide to current activity based on aggregated seasonality and weather signals — useful as a starting point, not a guarantee of what you'll find.

Keep different species separate (paper bags, not sealed plastic, which encourages sweating and decay), and refrigerate or process them promptly — wild fungi deteriorate faster than shop-bought ones. Brush off soil and trim damaged parts before storing. Cook thoroughly, as many wild species (even otherwise edible ones) are toxic or hard to digest raw. None of this substitutes for confirming the identification first — preparation only matters once you are certain what you have.

Yes, and it's a great way to introduce them to nature — but supervision is essential. Teach children never to put any fungus in their mouth before an adult has confirmed it's safe, since some toxic species look attractive to small hands. Keep specimens out of reach until identified, wash hands afterwards, and treat every unidentified find as a teaching moment rather than something to taste.

That's completely normal — many fungi are genuinely difficult, and some can only be told apart with a microscope or chemical tests. Photograph it from multiple angles (cap, gills/pores, stem base, habitat), note the substrate and date, and post it to the ID Workbench for community input, or simply leave it where it is. When in doubt, don't pick it to eat, and never assume it's probably fine — leave unidentified finds alone.

In the ID Workbench, experienced identifiers propose IDs and vote on submitted finds; votes are weighted by each identifier's trust tier, which is earned from a track record of accepted IDs and helpful contributions. A consensus and confidence level emerge from the weighted agreement among proposals. An optional AI pre-screen can offer an advisory suggestion alongside this, but it carries no special weight and is never treated as a safety determination.

Reputation on ForageGB is earned organically through accepted identifications and other helpful contributions in the ID Workbench — there's no separate application form. As your accepted-ID track record builds, you move up trust tiers, which carry more vote weight on consensus IDs and visible badges on your profile.

When proposals diverge in the ID Workbench, the consensus mechanism weights votes by contributor trust tier rather than declaring a single arbiter. If agreement stays split, the record is shown with a lower confidence level rather than a false consensus, signalling that further expert input or additional features (spore print, microscopy, habitat detail) are needed before treating the ID as settled.

Not directly yet — ForageGB doesn't currently have a built-in export integration to the Fungal Records Database of Britain & Ireland (FRDBI), iRecord, or the NBN Atlas. What you can do today is export your own data from the Logbook as CSV/GPX/JSON and submit it to those services yourself through their own submission routes. Direct push integration is a reasonable thing to ask for if it matters to your recording workflow.

The species directory and taxonomy browser are the place to check current names and classification within the app. For authoritative, up-to-date nomenclature and synonymy beyond the app, the British Mycological Society and the NBN Atlas are the reference points the community generally follows. If you spot a name in ForageGB that looks out of date against current consensus, flag it via a dangerous-database-error report so it can be reviewed.

Record the full date, precise location (grid reference where possible), substrate/host, habitat type, and associated tree species for mycorrhizal fungi. Photograph the cap, gills/pores/teeth, stem base, and any cut or bruised surfaces, and take a spore print where practical. The ForageGB Logbook captures date, location pin and photos, and exports to CSV/GPX/JSON, which covers most of what recording schemes like FRDBI or iRecord expect — though you'll currently need to submit to those schemes yourself, as there's no direct push integration.

Document it thoroughly (photographs, habitat, substrate, grid reference, and a spore print or voucher where appropriate), post it to the ID Workbench for community/expert confirmation, and once confirmed, submit it to the FRDBI or your local recording group, since ForageGB doesn't yet push records there automatically. For anything that might be a genuinely new or notable county/national record, the British Mycological Society or a local recording group are the right point of contact to verify significance before wider publication.

Local fungus groups (often affiliated with the British Mycological Society) run forays, identification workshops, and coordinate regional recording — they're the best route into structured scientific recording beyond personal logging. Search via the BMS website for groups near you, or ask in the ForageGB community for recommendations in your area.

The taxonomy browser and species directory aim to reflect current accepted names, with prior synonyms cross-referenced so older records and searches still resolve correctly. When a species is reclassified (new genus, split, or merge), the directory entry is updated to track the current consensus name; if you find an entry that hasn't caught up with a recent reclassification, report it as a database error so it can be corrected.

The authoritative source is the GB Red List for Fungi, maintained by JNCC, with supporting material also hosted by the Fungus Conservation Trust. ForageGB doesn't maintain its own independent Red List assessment — species pages reference conservation status where known, but the JNCC list is the one to consult for the current, official status of a species. Contributions to the Red List itself go through JNCC/BMS conservation processes rather than through the app.

Your finds in the Logbook are owner-only by default — your exact pins are private, and the community heatmap only ever shows coarse, k-anonymised aggregation, never your exact location. You retain ownership of your data and can export it (CSV/GPX/JSON) at any time. If you choose to submit a record onward to FRDBI, iRecord or NBN yourself, that submission is then subject to those services' own data licensing terms, not ForageGB's.

If you spot an error that could affect safety — for example a species page understating toxicity, a confused synonym, or a wrong look-alike warning — report it immediately through the app's report/feedback option on that page rather than waiting for routine review. Safety-relevant corrections are treated as priority fixes; include the species page, what's wrong, and a source if you have one.

Take a complete fruitbody including the stem base (don't cut it off — the base is often diagnostic), wrap it in greaseproof paper rather than plastic, and dry it gently (e.g. with a food dehydrator on low heat) as soon as possible to preserve it for herbarium deposit. Record full collection data — date, precise location, substrate, habitat, collector name — alongside it, and take a spore print and photographs before drying. Dried vouchers can be offered to a local herbarium or recording group for long-term reference, particularly for rare or disputed records.