Getting Started Keys
So now you know some of the things to look for. But who’s going to tell you what they mean? So what if it has attached gills, a ring, and a white spore print. What is it and is it edible? This is where the books come in.
There are two basic kinds of good mushroom books (see the list of mushroom books later in this booklet), those with lots of mushrooms and good illustrations like Lincoff or Phillips, and those which lack either in the quantity of mushrooms or in the quality of illustrations, but which have keys. With the first type of book you are given a lot of choices, but little guidance. Basically you must find a mushroom picture which matches your specimen, then read its description to see if it really is what you have. More often than not the description won’t quite match your specimen, for example, the wrong spore color or the wrong location; so you go back to the pictures. On the other hand, a (dichotomous) key is a step-by-step questioning that should take you to the correct mushroom (or close). Here is a typical section from a key.
1. Veil absent; cap brown to red-brown.2
1. Veil present, consists of fine hairs (check young specimens)H. mesophaeum
2. Cap 4-6 cm broad; gills white to gray, covered at first with fine water dropsH. crustuliniforme
2. Cap smaller or larger; gills lack water drops3
3. Cap 2–4 cm broadH. hiemale
3. Cap 7-12 cm broadH. sinapizans
This is the key to Heboloma (other keys would direct you to this key) from Orson Miller’s “Mushrooms of North America” and illustrates some of the common problems in using a key. You often must have both young and older specimens to answer a question. Sometimes the feature that you’re looking for isn’t always present leading you to doubt any choice made. Quite often when there are two size ranges, your specimen will be right between the two, i.e., what if your Heboloma has a 6.5 cm cap? Another problem here (and a problem of mushroom books in general) is that there are probably over a hundred species of Heboloma and only the most common four are listed. There is a chance that what you’ve found isn’t in the book. Still, even with all of its problems, a good key should be a consideration in choosing a mushroom book.
A useful beginning key is a key to genus. This will tell you that the mushroom you have is a Lactarius for example, but won’t tell you what kind of Lactarius. There are a couple of common kinds of keys to genera. One is the dichotomous key like the key above. The other is a pictorial key. Here is a pictorial key to the major genera of gilled mushrooms based on spore color and gill attachment. Choosing the column with the correct spore color and the row with the right gill attachment leads to a suitable section of the array which must be surveyed to find the genus of your mushroom.
So now you know some of the things to look for. But who’s going to tell you what they mean? So what if it has attached gills, a ring, and a white spore print. What is it and is it edible? This is where the books come in.
There are two basic kinds of good mushroom books (see the list of mushroom books later in this booklet), those with lots of mushrooms and good illustrations like Lincoff or Phillips, and those which lack either in the quantity of mushrooms or in the quality of illustrations, but which have keys. With the first type of book you are given a lot of choices, but little guidance. Basically you must find a mushroom picture which matches your specimen, then read its description to see if it really is what you have. More often than not the description won’t quite match your specimen, for example, the wrong spore color or the wrong location; so you go back to the pictures. On the other hand, a (dichotomous) key is a step-by-step questioning that should take you to the correct mushroom (or close). Here is a typical section from a key.
1. Veil absent; cap brown to red-brown.2
1. Veil present, consists of fine hairs (check young specimens)H. mesophaeum
2. Cap 4-6 cm broad; gills white to gray, covered at first with fine water dropsH. crustuliniforme
2. Cap smaller or larger; gills lack water drops3
3. Cap 2–4 cm broadH. hiemale
3. Cap 7-12 cm broadH. sinapizans
This is the key to Heboloma (other keys would direct you to this key) from Orson Miller’s “Mushrooms of North America” and illustrates some of the common problems in using a key. You often must have both young and older specimens to answer a question. Sometimes the feature that you’re looking for isn’t always present leading you to doubt any choice made. Quite often when there are two size ranges, your specimen will be right between the two, i.e., what if your Heboloma has a 6.5 cm cap? Another problem here (and a problem of mushroom books in general) is that there are probably over a hundred species of Heboloma and only the most common four are listed. There is a chance that what you’ve found isn’t in the book. Still, even with all of its problems, a good key should be a consideration in choosing a mushroom book.
A useful beginning key is a key to genus. This will tell you that the mushroom you have is a Lactarius for example, but won’t tell you what kind of Lactarius. There are a couple of common kinds of keys to genera. One is the dichotomous key like the key above. The other is a pictorial key. Here is a pictorial key to the major genera of gilled mushrooms based on spore color and gill attachment. Choosing the column with the correct spore color and the row with the right gill attachment leads to a suitable section of the array which must be surveyed to find the genus of your mushroom.
