I noticed this behemoth of a mushroom growing in my back garden this evening. I am used to seeing the small white variety growing in fields but have never seen one quite so large erupting through the gravel in the back garden, what variety is it and is it edible?
I took a couple of pictures with the camera on my mobile phone.
When I started downloading this picture, the first thing I saw was the huge white sphere in the upper left. I was ready to yell, “That’s not a mushroom!!! It’s a POD! Run away!”.
As to the actual mushroom, I see them all the time around here but I have no idea what they are.
IANAMycologist, but those look kind of like Amanita phalloides, which are most emphatically not edible. I don’t have my books here, so I can’t be sure.
There are a few species of fungi that could be very conclusively identified from just a couple of pictures, but I don’t think this is going to be one of those. You’re not going to get a completely reliable positive identification online - positive identification is possible, just not this way.
Anyway, it isn’t A Phalloides (cap is the wrong colour) and I don’t think it is even an Amanita (just looks a bit scruffy and fleshy - Amanitas are more often slim and sharply dressed, as it were). I think it’s a Cortinarius of some kind.
You might get a better answer at http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/ -Roger Phillips is a very accomplished mycologist.
Well, it’s a bit hard to be sure from such dodgy photographs, and since you should never eat any mushroom unless you’re 110% clear on what it is, don’t eat it. We discussed this at some length in another thread Mangetout was also participating in.
He still does this sort of thing whereas I haven’t since I was a kid, but for what it’s worth I don’t think it’s a death cap or relative either - the cap shape looks a bit unusual for them. But take a look here for another primer in mushroom ID methods.
I defer to your greater experience. I based my call on some google images that showed some A. phalloides with browner caps, and the scales on the cap. But you are right that the stem and ring look entirely wrong for Amanitas
Mittu, that’s a hell of a camera you’ve got on your phone. What kind is it?
Based on the sony-like DSC prefix and the approx 3’n a bit megapixels, I’m going to guess it’s a late-model Sony Ericsson of some kind, maybe a K800i. It should be possible to check the exif info on the photo if you have some sort of photo editing app like photoshop or whatever.
Windows XP will show the info in the advanced properties. The phone is indeed a K800i.
