What is this mushroom?

bijan 8/24/2017, 8:31 pm

I picked this mushroom walking near were I live in Northern Virginia. There seems to be a lot of mushrooms this time of the year. This one is about 6 inches wide and about 4 inches height. What is this mushroom? Edit?usp=sharing

Please click on the link below to see picture of the mushroom. It is white.
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1NpILxfHibd8ACWEzRQqoRep7kC8lVeXgAn2OAj1SVgY/edit?usp=sharing

**Scorpio Rising** 8/24/2017, 9:13 pm

I only identify and eat morels, and those are not morels. They look like toadstools to me, which are poisonous. But like I said, no real experience outside the spring shrooms!

Sorry, hope to see some other inputs! Very Happy

BeetlesPerSqFt 8/24/2017, 9:47 pm

My mushroom ID is rusty, but looks like a member of the Russula family. The color can be used to eliminate a lot of species, but not enough to tell you the exact identity. Some of the features used to help identify mushrooms can't be photographed (such as odor), and some can only be determined when the mushroom is young and fresh (such as spore color.) Some of the mushrooms in the Russula family are ectomycorrhizal (having a symbiotic relationship with the roots of certain plants), so another part relevant to identifying one is knowing what tree it was growing under.

It probably goes without saying, but just in case: If you don't have the training to identify a wild mushroom yourself, you should not taste or eat it.

bijan 8/25/2017, 9:55 am

Thank you for the replies.

Looked up toadstool mushroom and this https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-lone-white-toadstool-mushroom-fungus-image21338610 seems to look similar and also has the description matching (ie mine was also a lone mushroom growing in a grassy area at the edge of a wooded place).

Toadstools seem to be a generic term that describes many varied mushrooms but in particular ones that have a red dotted cap at least that is what google images show the most of. According to Wiki identifying mushrooms nowadays is becoming molecular!

I will discard it but I like to get familiar with what plants grow around my area.

BeetlesPerSqFt 8/25/2017, 12:38 pm

It is true the word toadstool doesn't have an agreed upon definition. The white toadstool you linked to belongs to the Amanita genus (in the Amanita family) and is different than the mushroom you found. The red mushroom with white dots is Amanita muscaria - the Fly Amanita. Mushrooms in the Amanita genus often have a skirt on the stem -- but it can fall off of melt away - and not all mushrooms with skirts are Amanita. My Audubon mushroom field guide says, "Toxic amanitas have caused 90 percent of fatal mushroom poisonings." The book was originally printed in 1981 so the exact statistic may have changed, but the point has not.

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