Fungi tips

Hi all

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/spore producers I find that a small mirror like this (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/174821751) works best.
You can also optionally take a spore print for further/better ids and microscopic pics to have it as 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).

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 and thanks to wanda @wandaaus for giving me the idea to create this journal post!

Posted on December 19, 2023 10:34 PM by

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