Mushroom Guide

The BASICS of MUSHROOM IDENTIFICATION

Take a good look at the mushrooms in the photo above, noting that each of the caps is about four inches wide and that they were found growing on the forest floor amidst Eastern hemlock, white oak, American beech, and yellow birch trees.

The cap color varies from pale yellow at the edge of the cap to yellowish tan at the center. The cap cuticle is distinctly wrinkled, and there's a white bloom over part of the cap cuticle, especially near the center of the cap. The cap isn't slimy or viscid, and has no scales or warts on it. The gills are finely attached to the top of the white stalk. There is a ring of white tissue around the stalk, and that ring has a yellowish or brownish upper edge.

If you had taken a spore print, you'd have learned that the spores are rust-colored. If you put your nose right near the gills and inhaled, you'd notice no particular odor, just a "mushroomy" smell. If you cut across the gills with a knife and watched closely, you wouldn't see any liquid (latex) oozing from the gills, and you wouldn't see any noteworthy color changes after damaging those tissues. If you had carefully examined the base of the stalk, using a pocket knife to pry away surrounding bits of soil, before even picking these specimens, you'd have found no evidence of any other little loose bits of mushroom tissue on or around the base of the stalk.

In assessing this mushroom's field characters, we've just written a decent description of Rozites caperata, more affectionately known to experienced mushroom hunters as the edible Gypsy Mushroom… and that's exactly what it is.

But if you didn't know what color the spore print is, didn't rule out the presence of latex by scratching the gills, or didn't notice that white bloom over parts of the cap cuticle, it wouldn't be possible to accurately identify this mushroom.