It depends on where you are from, as guides tend to be specific to certain regions. The US and Europe are very well documented and several field guides are available, but for other places field guides might be more difficult to come buy.
I personally own two different guides. One is called “Mushrooms” by Roger Phillips, who was a British botanist that recently passed away. This book is comprehensive and covers most of the commonly found species in Europe and several species from the US. This book is a reference that I keep at home.
For the field, I started with a pocket guide called " Field Guide to Mushrooms and Other Fungi of Britain and Europe". This guide is nice because it is portable, but it lacks many common species and has only a few images for each species, so I found it frustrating more often than helpful, as the species that I had in front of me was either absent from the book, or it looked very different from the images. I eventually found an app called “Shroomify”, this app contains a large database of species from the US and Europe, shows you the common species for the current month, and helps you filter species by traits. It is a very useful resource if you carry your phone with you.
Finally, be very very careful when you start out if you plan to eat them. Some common edibles are quite easy to identify with little experience (Coprinus comatus and Chicken of the Woods, for example), but there are many edible mushrooms and also many very toxic mushrooms that look similar to white button mushrooms. Only eat something if you are 100% sure that you have identified it properly, and that you know that the land that it is growing on does not contain some nasty pollutants, as many of these are bio-accumulated by mushrooms and can get into the fruiting bodies. The safest way to find mushrooms to eat is to forage with someone who is experienced.
It depends on where you are from, as guides tend to be specific to certain regions. The US and Europe are very well documented and several field guides are available, but for other places field guides might be more difficult to come buy.
I personally own two different guides. One is called “Mushrooms” by Roger Phillips, who was a British botanist that recently passed away. This book is comprehensive and covers most of the commonly found species in Europe and several species from the US. This book is a reference that I keep at home.
For the field, I started with a pocket guide called " Field Guide to Mushrooms and Other Fungi of Britain and Europe". This guide is nice because it is portable, but it lacks many common species and has only a few images for each species, so I found it frustrating more often than helpful, as the species that I had in front of me was either absent from the book, or it looked very different from the images. I eventually found an app called “Shroomify”, this app contains a large database of species from the US and Europe, shows you the common species for the current month, and helps you filter species by traits. It is a very useful resource if you carry your phone with you.
In the cases that I am not able to identify the species, I will take a photo and post it to https://www.reddit.com/r/ShroomID/
Finally, be very very careful when you start out if you plan to eat them. Some common edibles are quite easy to identify with little experience (Coprinus comatus and Chicken of the Woods, for example), but there are many edible mushrooms and also many very toxic mushrooms that look similar to white button mushrooms. Only eat something if you are 100% sure that you have identified it properly, and that you know that the land that it is growing on does not contain some nasty pollutants, as many of these are bio-accumulated by mushrooms and can get into the fruiting bodies. The safest way to find mushrooms to eat is to forage with someone who is experienced.
That’s great stuff, good info. I always want to try as a hobby, but always afraid. It’s similar like asking an angler for a good fishing spot.