Question 29: Habitat (or supporting wood for species growing on wood)
This section requires details about the location where the mushroom was picked up from.
There are two circumstances that influence the answer to provide here:
- if the mushroom was collected on wood (or roots), we must just indicate here whether that wood
was originating from a deciduous or coniferous tree. In other words:
- if the mushroom grows on deciduous wood, select \"broad-leaved forest (or on deciduous wood)\", and this independently of the collection site, being understood that it is only the second statement \"or on deciduous wood\" which is to be considered here; likewise, if the mushroom grows on coniferous wood, select \"coniferous forest (or on conifers)\", and this independently of the collection site, being understood that it is only the second statement \"or on conifers\" which is to be considered here;
- In all other situations, we must select the choice corresponding to the situation, as far as
the collection site is concerned (wood, woodland, forest, park, etc.)
- "broad-leaved forest (or on deciduous wood)", select this if the mushroom was collected in a deciduous forest.
- "coniferous forest (or on conifers)", select this if the mushroom was collected in a coniferous forest.
- "park, garden, pasture, roadside, rich soil", select this if the mushroom was collected outside of woods or forests, for example in a meadow, garden, on a compost heap, in cultivated areas, lawns, roadsides, etc.
- "woodland, clearing or edge of woods", select this if the mushroom was collected in a ventilated area close to trees, such as woodland, footpath in woods, clearing, forest edge.
- "damp area, swamps", select this if the mushroom was collected in a very wet area, such as a swamp or marshland.
(under construction)
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Question 30: Region of collection
One has here to simply select, among the choices proposed, the one which suits best the rough geographical location of the collection site.
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Question 31: Altitude of collection
This section requires information about the altitude of collection. Simply enter whether the collection site is located in the mountains (altitude above a thousand feet minimum), or at low altitude.
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Question 32: Nature of collection soil
Indicate here (if known) the nature of the collection soil in terms of acidity (this does not apply of course to
species growing on wood). The soil acidity can be estimated from surrounding plants and mushroom, or geological maps.
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The expert mode
(under construction)
The use of this mode is normally reserved to experienced mycologists. It allows one to tune
the behaviour of the programme, or to provide additional information to the search engine.
Currently accessible parameters are:
- the possibility to filter only one genus among those computed by the search engine.
A particular genus may indeed be easily recognized by amateur mycologists with a little field experience.
This is achieved by selecting this genus among those proposed by the system. The search engine will then exclude all
species not belonging to this particular genus.
To activate this mode, simply select the genus you want to use as filter (the default selection is "none", which makes this filter inactive). Only a single genus can be used at a time as filter.
Example: if we recognize the mushroom as being a brittlegill (member of genus Russula), we just have to select the genus "Russula" from the list "Genus imposed for search", then start the search by clicking on "Start search".
NB : some species tend to navigate from one genus to another as time goes by and science makes progress, and the filter being strict in this version, using it might have unexpected results in such cases. - the possibility to deactivate the frequency of appearance of species being taken into account . The system indeed uses an information of frequency of growth (or likelihood to be the right mushroom) which tends to privilege, in output results, species which appear more often to those who appear rarely. By clicking on "search with morphological criteria only", the frequency is deactivated.
This has as effect to only consider visible morphological information, and all species are therefore on the same level in terms of likelihood. If the system does not provide satisfying results, this can be useful to identify rare species which would be left aside otherwise because being too unlikely.
The default mode is "search with both morphological criteria and frequency"
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