Dangerous games

The mushrooms on the southern margin of the big compost heap snapped in reference 1 on Sunday had grown a good deal by dusk on Tuesday and I decided that it was time to try eating them.

They looked very like field mushrooms, but I thought it best to ask Bing who turned up lots of sites devoted to mushrooms - and the Wikipedia article at reference 2, tracked down to reference 5. The good news was that mushrooms with brown gills, as these two, were generally OK. The seriously bad mushrooms had white gills. 

Plus good mushrooms smelt attractively of the sort of mushroom that one buys in Sainsbury's or Costcutter. With these last doing a very good line in economy button mushrooms. So as well as having brown gills, these two smelt good.

With the result that BH was tasked with frying them in a spot of butter, to have on toast for our tea, our term for the generally light meal taken around 18:00. With the caveat that turning yellow on cutting or bruising was bad. Which, sadly these mushrooms did: not Agaricus campestris as I had thought, rather Agaricus xanthodermus, commonly the yellow stainer. Not usually fatal, but probably best avoided.

So into the compost bin, followed by much handwashing. A few spores might be enough...

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/11/sundays-snaps.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agaric. A generic term for a mushroom with cap, gills and stalk.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agaricales. The order.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agaricaceae. The family.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agaricus. The genus. A mixture of good and bad mushrooms, including both shop mushrooms and field mushrooms.

More fungal news

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-fungal-livestock-reported-at.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/fungal-news.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/monster-mushrooms.html. Monsters on the Isle of Wight

Reference 9: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/something-going-down-bottom-of-garden.html.