Here’s some advice for real beginners, just to get you started:

1. Get a good book. Better still, get several. When I started out there weren’t so many around but now there’s dozens. My favorite is (the classic) Roger Phillips Mushrooms but it helps to have more than one. The good thing about Roger is that it gives you confidence that you can identify anything if you try hard enough. The problem is that you are holding an interesting mushroom and trying to identify it, and you’re faced with hundreds photos to trawl through.

2. Some mushrooms are easy to identify and others are just too difficult. Don’t bother with the hard ones. There’s an expression that mushroom hunters use: “Little Brown Mushrooms”. What they mean is that a whole host of mushroom species just don’t have enough obvious identification features to make it worth trying to identify and they all blend into one image of small brown ones. All the major edible species have some clear ways of identifying what they are, which is part of the reason that they’re a major edible species in the first place!

3. Start by going to a wood or forest. I’ve found that woodland in less densely populated regions is generally best, but even in south-east England there’s lots. Meadows and grassland can bring very good finds, but there are usually fewer species and less quantity. Woodland is better because fungi live off dead organic matter and many species grow on dead wood or only grow with specific tree species.

4. You’re more likely to find something in September or October. There are plenty of species that prefer other months but these months are the most fruitful.

5. Don’t try to identify from visual appearance alone. (Unless it’s something very obvious like a Fly Agaric or a Parasol.) Some other important features are; smell, taste, time of year, general habitat (e.g. growing on the edge of a wood), specific habitat (e.g. growing under an Oak tree), spore print colour, grouping (e.g. clusters or rings).

6. Get to know the deadly mushrooms from your books. You may never find a Deathcap but its image and characteristics should be hovering in the back of your mind. The first time I found one I did a merry jig because I immediately knew what it was.

7. Get to know sites where particular species live. I don’t mean in a general way, but the actual specific place where a specific species is growing. Sometimes you find a mushroom on a site and you aren’t sure what it is, either because it’s too old or too young, or because you only have one or two samples, or because it has some characteristics that fit with one identification but others that seem not to. If you mull it over and you back to the same place at the same time next year, you’ll often find it again and things will be clearer.

8. Don’t try to collect all the species you find and identify them at home. (Which is what I did when I started.) It’s a waste of time. First: it’s environmentally unfriendly. Second: it doesn’t work – you’ll find that you can’t remember the tree species you found it under, or some other important detail. Third: the job is too big. Be happy with identifying and getting to know one, two or three species on an outing. That’s pretty good going, especially if they’re tricky ones.

9. Go on a ‘Fungus Foray’, i.e. a walk through the woods organised by a mushroom expert. I’ve never been on one, but I probably should have done. It would have got me further and quicker than I got on my own.

10. Get to know the main genera (groups of species that are related). You’ll have lots of trouble identifying a particular species of Russula, but you should be able to spot that it’s some kind of Russula at 10 paces. That speeds things up a lot and it helps when you’re out with friends who expect you to know them all. Just say “oh, that’s just a Russula” and they’re usually sufficiently impressed.

Equipment

This is what I take on hunting expedition:

1. Containers. A wicker basket is good, but I can’t be doing with that because I go everywhere by train and cycle. So I use large plastic boxes and small sealable plastic bags. Plastic bags are terrible but I can’t find anything better. I need receptacles for small samples and also larger amounts of edibles. I’m looking for a better solution.
2. Knife. Needed for cutting mushrooms cleanly in half for photographing and flesh colour can be important for identification. I got the smallest foldable knife I could find, with a 3.5cm long blade. Knives are evil in London.
3. Tape Measure. For widths and heights. You can just estimate by eye but I prefer to measure. I found keyring tape for £1 which is great.
4. Notebook. When I’m out I hate stopping to take notes, but when I’m home looking at photos I always wish I’d taken more notes. I rely on photos for remembering physical appearance but habitat, size, smell, etc. are just as important.
5. Reference book. I always bring one but never look at it.
6. Camera. I have an Olympus E-M5 which has a built in macro mode in the lens setup that produces great results. I previously had a Canon SX120 IS, which was actually simpler to use because small cameras do extreme close-ups and longer depth of field more easily.

This is what I have at home:

1. Books. Lots and lots. My favourite is Roger Phillips – Mushrooms because the photos are so good. I have both editions. The 1st has a nicer bigger layout, and the 2nd has several revisions (Latin names of mushroom species change frequently as their family relationships become better understood) and a few additions (though not much that will be useful). I’ve just bought Stefan Buczacki – Collins Fungi Guide. (“The most complete fully-illustrated field guide…, blah, blah.”) The illustrations are only moderately successful and don’t show the gills from below, but I had several unidentified finds which I soon found in there.
2. Microscope. Bresser Biolux NV Microscope from Lidl for £50. It does up to x1280 which is astounding for that price. I use it to look at spores. Spore appearance and measurements can be useful for eliminating possible ids.
3. Website. Yes, this one. Hosted on 1&1, uses WordPress with my own plugin code and theme files.