I have not been mushroom hunting for some time but recently ran into a few people with some interest in this immensely complicated piece of Natural History. Mushrooms have been experimented with in various cultures for centuries and in some cultures there is significant knowledge. The Swedish for example have picked and eaten Russula and Lactarious for centuries. The Indians in the SW USA have contributed significant knowledge about toxicity of Psilosobe, Stropharia, and Paneolis (commonly referred to as LBM's Little Brown Mushrooms) as they were used in psychedelic mushrooms rituals. This is also complicated by varietal issues. There is a case where a PHD Mycologist from Finland who had regularly eaten a variety of mushroom there came to the United States and ate what he thought was the same mushroom here and died from a varietal difference. So as you can see we are dealing with an area of botany of considerable complexity with hundreds of thousands of varieties each with their own set of subspecies.
The identification of mushrooms is complicated by these factors consequently there have been many attempts to write identification keys. For many years I used the key from Orson Millers "Mushrooms Of North America". There is a problem with that key however that the first question in the key requires "Spore Color". Unfortunately when doing field identification spores are often NOT present and color unknown. This of course aborts the identification process completely using that key.
Somewhere I ran across a Friesian key for the Agarics (Gilled Mushrooms). Where this key differs from Millers in that the first question relates to "Gills Attached To Stipe" and not. This is a much better starting point for doing identification as it is a readily observable trait. I have used a copy of this key for many years and have found it quite useful in at least getting to the genera of a specimen.
While explaining all this to some novices it occurred to me the only copy of this key is a tattered piece of paper glued inside my "Orson Miller". I am going to retype and print this but it occurred to me that the logic from this key could be translated into a computer program without too much difficulty. After all there are only about 30 genera and the key does not address species and varieties.
In 2003 I wrote an identifier for the ferns of NE USA which was published by the NYS Museum. I was thinking that perhaps I could adapt some of that code to this project but I soon ran into problems the fern identifier being synoptic and the friesion key dichotomous. So I have started writing the new code from scratch. To be continued......
Update: I have been reviewing work from many years ago and found a mushroom identifier I wrote many years ago. It is a subset of data in GPG.exe which I forgot I ever did. I tried it briefly and it seems to work but only has a few data entries.
Download GPG:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-FdGMkfhc8FN01IVTNvNTNwMjg/view?usp=sharing
About SHROOM.exe - I have started this new project in C# as I am more comfortable there than I am with Android Studio. Eventually having a program like this on a phone would be ideal. I am new to Android and have not been able to create an installable .apk yet. If there is any body out there that can help me ---- Please!!
Equiptment: Basket ,paper bags - half dozen, ziplock sandwich bags -half dozen, jack knife, Frieson key
Spore Color - Field identification - Spore Print
In the field spore color can sometimes be determined by observing the ground under the cap or sometimes, spores will cling to the upper stipe, but to do an accurate identification one should make a "spore print". This is done by...............
On Striking - Milk?, Color Change?
When making an identification one should always strike (cut) the bottom of the cap with a pocket knife. Depending on species many telling features can be observed. Like a White Agaricus Arvensis is easily identified because it turns yellow on striking. And of course the spectacular Lactarius Indigo which bleeds blue milk that turns green is easily identified. Both of these are edible? Boletes which have a spongy layer rather than gills are edible PROVIDING they do not turn blue on striking and spongy layer not red.