Identifying fungi safely

• Cap — colour, shape, size, surface texture (smooth, scaly, slimy, dry), how the colour changes from centre to edge, and whether it bruises or stains when touched.
• Underside — gills, pores, or teeth (see below), their colour, spacing, and how they attach to the stem.
• Stem — colour, texture, whether it's solid or hollow, and how it tapers.
• Ring — present or absent, its position, and whether it's fixed or moveable.
• Volva — a sack-like structure at the very base of the stem. You must dig the whole specimen up, not snap it off, to see this — its presence or absence is critical for telling Amanita species apart.
• Flesh — colour when cut, and whether/how it changes colour on exposure to air.
• Smell — many species have a distinctive, describable smell (aniseed, radish, almond, coal tar, foul) that's a genuinely useful clue.
• Spore print colour — see the steps below.
• Habitat and substrate — growing on wood (which species?), in leaf litter, in grass, on dung; alone or in clusters.
• Mycorrhizal associations — many species (including ceps and chanterelles) only grow in partnership with specific tree species; noting the nearby trees is a real diagnostic clue, not just context.
• Season — the time of year narrows the possibilities considerably and rules out many look-alikes that fruit at a different time.

1. Remove the cap and place it gill-side (or pore-side) down on a piece of paper — use half white, half black paper if you don't know the spore colour in advance, so pale and dark spores both show up.
2. Cover with a bowl or glass to keep draughts off and slow drying.
3. Leave it for several hours, ideally overnight.
4. Lift the cap carefully and look at the colour of the deposit left on the paper — note it precisely (white, cream, pink, brown, purple-brown, black) as this is a key feature in keys and field guides.
5. Record the colour in your logbook notes alongside your photos; a description is far more useful later than relying on memory.

The structure under the cap is one of the fastest ways to narrow down a group of fungi:

• Gills — thin, blade-like plates radiating from the stem (most familiar "mushroom" shape). Check their colour, how crowded they are, and how they attach to the stem.
• Pores — a spongy layer of tiny tubes, characteristic of boletes and polypores. Note the pore colour and whether it bruises or stains blue, red, or black when pressed.
• Teeth — soft, hanging spines instead of gills or pores, as in hedgehog fungus. A relatively small but distinctive group.

Getting this one feature right immediately rules out large numbers of unrelated species, but it is a starting point for a key, not a conclusion in itself.

A current, UK-focused field guide (such as the Collins Fungi Guide, Roger Phillips' Mushrooms, or Geoffrey Kibby's Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain & Europe) gives you full keys, multiple photos per species at different ages, and explicit notes on toxic look-alikes — far more than any single app screen can show. Better still, take your find (or a clear set of photos covering every feature above) to a local fungus group, a British Mycological Society-affiliated foray, or an experienced forager. A second pair of trained eyes, in person, with the actual specimen, is the gold standard. ForageGB's community features are designed to support that process, not replace it.

In the ID Workbench, you can post a find for the community to identify. Other foragers propose identifications and vote, and a consensus forms with an associated confidence level. An optional AI pre-screen can offer an advisory suggestion to get the discussion started.

Both of these are advisory only. Neither the AI pre-screen nor a high-confidence community consensus is a safety check, and neither should be treated as permission to eat anything. They are aids to learning and discussion — a second opinion from people and tools, still subject to all the same limits as any photo-based identification (you can only see what the photos show, and a specimen needs to be examined in person, in the hand, to be confidently identified for the table).