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Introduction to the mushroom identification methods proposed"

Introduction to the mushroom identification methods proposed


 
The identification methods proposed here are primarily meant to be used by beginners, who don't know much about mycology, and look for an easy way of helping them identify the wild mushrooms they collect. More experienced persons might see this as a complementary help to sort out species which are likely to be close to the one sought.

We use here simple morphological criteria that can be seen with the naked eye, such as colours, size, presence of a ring on the stem, and various other chracteristic features.

These methods appear under two forms, depending on the complexity and type of the mushroom to determine:

In all cases, these method end up providing a link to the allegedly identified mushroom's web page, which provides then extra information to compare with and hopefully complete the identification process of the target mushroom.

The methods used here (as all identification methods for fungi based on macroscopic morphological criteria) can only help identifying common mushrooms. The vast majority of them can indeed only be identified with a high degree of certainty by experts with the help of a microscope.
They should however help beginners spot relevant criteria and get familiar with the differences between mushrooms, differences which can prove ultimately very useful to identify them!