Identifying fungi

Debivort's mushroom silhouettes

We have plenty of copies of two major field guides that you can borrow - these are a good place to start. They have photographic illustrations and between them are very comprehensive across a wide variety of species (not just the 'toadstool' shaped ones).

There's Michael Jordan's 'Encyclopedia of Fungi', and the other is Roger Phillips' 'Mushrooms and Other Fungi of Great Britain'. The latter author has a website, RogersMushrooms (that also includes North American species, so beware), which is reliable for alternative photos. sadly this seems unavailable at the moment.
If you want something online, I recommend First Fungi.

When you begin, you'll find yourself flicking randomly through the books trying to match the pictures to your specimen - and this is fine, because you'll start to get a feel for the different families and their characteristics. When comparing descriptions of species, there are glossaries to help you get to grips with the terminology (there's quite a lot of it).

If I had a mystery mushroom, I would start by making notes in my field notebook about the features like the colour and shape of the pores or gills...

.. the colour of the cap and whether it's sticky or patterned, and its shape.. whether the gills are wide apart or crowded.. what colour they are... whether the stipe is stout or long or flattened...

... even things like an obvious smell (one Russula is said to smell of wet washing, and another of crab).

Or perhaps it's quite unmushroomlike, like this strange earthstar (Geastrum).

Both books have a key at the front, so you can try these out to reach the correct family. You will remember that part of your assessment is to show you are able to use one. These keys will not get you to species level.

However - my favourite id book has a more comprehensive key. It's Marcel Bon's 'Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain and North-Western Europe'. You're welcome to take a look and borrow the key. It's out of print but you can sometimes get reasonably cheap secondhand copies. I like its colour drawings, because sometimes I think those are better at showing important features than photos.  There are lots of other fieldguides available, and you may find another you prefer. Whichever book you're using, it would be good to check with the Natural History Museum's Dictionary of UK Species to make sure you use up-to-date names on your labels. This database will also confirm which family your species belongs to, which will help in displaying your specimens taxonomically.

There are plenty of other books around - my latest purchase is 'Fascinated by Fungi' by Pat O'Reilly. It's rather good because it's arranged by habitat and it's quite readable - it's more than just a identification book.

You might find you want or need to look at the shape or colour of spores to help identify your specimen. Spore prints are easy to make, and you can make a slide to use with one of the microscopes in OJ17. There's some excellent information about making slides of spores and other mushroomy features on the confidently-named MushroomExpert.com.

Cortinarius spores

I've just found these keys at the British Mycological Society which could be useful if you get into this subject in a serious way. I think some of them might be a bit challenging to use, though others are rather more friendly.

Once you've identified your specimen (and sometimes you may find this impossible... fungi can be very variable as they grow and decay, so don't be downhearted) - you need to make sure you have recorded all the necessary what, where, when and who information. You need a method of associating it permanently with the specimen while you preserve it. Perhaps you could take photos and stick them in your notebook, or attach a jewellery tag to each specimen. Perhaps you could put each one in a labelled paper bag.

Here are some suggestions on preservation,

also some thoughts on collecting.

This link will bring up all posts tagged with 'fungi' (including any extra thoughts I've had recently).

Images are CC licensed from IcelandicSojourn, M, Jorg Hempel, Dan Molter, Gencer Emiroglu and Ron Pastorino.