Below are Amazon links to my three books on foraging. Hedgerow is published on the 3rd of August this year.

I dare say that most people who have been mushroom hunting without the benefit of an expert at their side have had the experience of going home and trying to match their collection to the hundreds or even thousands of pictures in their book. This is extraordinarily difficult, no matter how good the photos are, and is pretty well doomed to failure.  I know that people would like a short cut to identifying fungi but, while there are processes that can be followed, it is only experience that will really make matters at all straightforward. I have been trying to identify fungi for a quarter of a century and can I still sometimes find it extremely difficult. Every year I come home with unidentified specimens and every year there are many that defy my best efforts at determination.

Here are a few tips which will help you:

1. When you find an unknown fungus:

i. Take note of its habitat - many species are quite fussy about where they will grow and this knowledge can reduce the uncertainty enormously. Of especial importance is which tree (if any) it is growing under.

ii. Dig the whole thing up to preserve the important characteristics that may be at the base of the stem

iii. Handle it with great care (don’t, for example, grip it by the stem thus destroying any ring or subtle textures).

iv. Take note of the smell or any colour changes on cutting or bruising, as such characters are best observed in fresh specimens.

v. Make sure you have specimens in at least two stages of development.

vi. Note how it is growing - in rings, singly, in troops, in clusters and so on.

2. When you get home you will need to do the most important thing of all - examine the fungus. The first part of this examination is to find out the colour of the spores by taking a spore print. Carefully examine your find, studying as many fine details as you can think of. Do this before you open your books! If you have a scientific interest in fungi you will need a microscope.

3. Once you have got to know your fungus use a key to find out what it is.

4. Check the answer given to you by the key with any pictures or descriptions you have of that fungus. Remember to check in as many books as you can lay your hands on. An internet search may be of help in finding more pictures but, as with many things on the internet, a certain amount of wariness is required. See the links page for a few useful sites.

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Spore Print Push the stem through a hole in a piece of white paper, place over a cup and leave for a few hours. You will get a spore print. The only thing that matters is the colour which will range from white through cream to yellow, brown, dark brown, black and sometimes pink. This colour will give you a starting point in the keys found in most fungi books.

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Keys:

Many books on the fungi, including mine, have keys. The ultimate key to the fungi is the "Moser - Key to the Agarics and Boleti". Very much a book for grown-ups as it has no pictures! An English translation was produced about twenty years ago.

Keys ask you a series of question and, depending on your answers, you will be led to the correct identity of a specimen or at least its genus.

So for example if you had a specimen with a cap and a stem and gills and a white spore print you would turn to the page in the key that dealt with species with these characteristics. The series of questions would start with, say "Does it have a ring on the stem? If so go to question 2 if not go to question 12." Question 2 might say "Does it have a bag at the base of the stem or white remnants on the cap. If so go to question three, if not go to question 9". And so on until you get a name. There are at least two types of key - the dichotomous (you get two choices each time) and the multi-choice. Often they are mixed.

Keys are notoriously difficult and always seem to ask questions that have ambiguous answers or no answers at all. However if you go slowly and study your specimen very carefully you will make progress. Often it is the only way to get anywhere, so do try them. Some of the more advanced keys ask for microscopic characteristics.

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Books. If your interest is purely culinary then of course I must recommend my own book the "River Cottage Mushroom Handbook". This covers in detail over 60 edible species and 30 or so poisonous ones. It is due out on 3rd September 2007. If you wish to identify any fungus, edible or not, a few of  the best ones are listed below. Roger Phillip’s wonderful book must remain the favourite for the present and I strongly recommend it.

Mushrooms and other Fungi of Great Britain & Europe

by Roger Phillips (This is in its second edition now).

The Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain and North-Western Europe.

by Marcel Bon. The second edition is due to be published next year but the whole project has been beset with delays and no-one should hold their breath.
 

The Fungi of Switzerland is in six volumes and at about £80 a shot is not exactly a cheap option. Do not be put off by the "Switzerland" part as most of the fungi in the books can be found in the UK. These books are precise and glorious, get them if you can.

There are many more books of a more specialist nature dealing with particular Genera.

Microscope. If you wish to take the study of fungi beyond collecting for the table you really need a microscope. So many characteristics that enable you to accurately identify collections are microscopic. Chief among these are the spores. While the shape and size of a toadstool may vary greatly within a species the spore size and shape remains fairly constant. You will need, at the very least, 1000x magnification oil immersion and with a graticule fitted for measurement purposes.

Warning: Eating wild fungi can be a wonderful way of enjoying the fruits of nature, but if you get it wrong you may kill yourself. Before you eat anything please read this.