Looking for mushrooms

A number of wild mushrooms growing in the British Isles are much more appetizing to eat than the cultivated variety. But you must really know what you are doing before you pick and eat wild mushrooms as there are some very poisonous varieties. The safest thing to do is to go with someone who is an expert and can recognize the various varieties of fungi growing wild.

The main problem is that many poisonous species resemble edible ones. For instance, the delicious field mushroom looks very much like the aptly named death cap which is deadly poisonous, and they both grow in deciduous woods. Like the field mushroom the death cap peels easily, but when pulled up completely, it has a second ring on its stem.

It is easy to confuse the edible boletus with the Devil's boletus while it's young. Fully grown, however, the flesh and stem of the Devil's boletus turn to yellow-red or blood-red and all parts turn blue if rubbed. The bitter boletus has white flesh when young, but later this turns to pale yellow or pale pink, and the stem is finely veined, often a brownish olive green.

Wild mushrooms can be found from April until November; a few varieties are still around in December, but the best time to look for mushrooms is from July to October. Their habitat varies from woodland to meadows; some are found in hedgerows and others in sandy heaths. Generally they thrive in woodland with damp soil and they will be easier to see there.

Mushrooms and toadstools can look spectacular. The giant puff ball, for instance, may reach as much as 30cm (1ft) in diameter. (Incidentally it is edible; the white flesh can be sliced and fried.) The poisonous fly agarics (it causes severe sickness and coma, but is rarely fatal) is a handsome creation about 15-2 2cm (6-8½in) high with a bright red cap speckled with white. And the delicious chanterelle, unfolding like a little golden trumpet, looks as good as it tastes. It has a slight smell of apricots and can be fried in butter or stewed for 20 minutes and eaten as an accompaniment to meat or used as a filling in omelettes.

Many of the wild fungi are so decorative that it is well worth taking the camera into the woods. You need color film to do them justice and a camera with a shutter opening of up to 2.8 or 3.5. Most reasonably priced cameras have a built-in light meter, which by means of a spot or an arrow will indicate whether there is enough light. If there isn't you will have to use flash. Unless you really know fungi, don't pick them. Look at them and photograph them but leave them alone.