Fungi tips

If you want to know more about fungi and how to take photos of them read the long bit of writing below. If you don't, have a nice day! 😀

When taking photos of a Common gilled mushroom you can take the top and or side of the fungus and the gills. When taking photos of the gills I find that a pocket mirror works best. You can also optionally take a spore print for further/better ids and microscopic pics to have it a a definite species level, but the other photos still work well. With some mushrooms like the Yellow stainer (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/118394-Agaricus-xanthodermus) can be identified against other Field and Button species if you bruise or scratch the surface making the area yellow (that's why it's called a yellow stainer).

You can do the same thing with Boletes and other similar shaped mushrooms.

Space and colour of gills can give you a better id of the species.

For polypores sometimes you can take a pic of just the top of it if you are sure of what species it is. If you are not sure you can always pull your mirror out and have a look at the pores underneath. Again microscopic photos can bring it down to a species level, but are not always needed.
It helps to get the pores for a better id of the species, just like with the gills.

Thanks for reading!

These are some of the fungi taken with the mirror -

Posted on December 19, 2023 10:41 PM by