Mushroom Families – Pt 1

With over 4000 mushroom species in North America alone, where are you going to get started?

Hopefully you are well on your way to learning the 10-15 mushrooms I discuss in the Intro to Mushrooms talk. These include many of the most commonly foraged mushrooms on the west coast.

Next, I think it makes sense to zoom out some to learn some of the most popular general categories of mushrooms. This is the equivalent to learning to recognize amphibians, birds, fish, and primates in the animal kingdom.

There are a few big benefits to learning to recognize these large categories. First, it helps you to begin building a map of how these all fit together. When You pick up a mushroom you no longer need to wonder which of the 4000+ mushrooms this might be. Instead, you can mentally place it in a particular category and move on.

Another benefit is that most guidebooks organize mushrooms into these same general categories. Learning the common mushroom families will make it much easier to navigate your way through the guidebooks and thus, reduce the amount of time it take you to find a mushroom you are trying to identify

Here I cover a selection of these families.