Stropharia Aurantiaca

[eexpee]

Sorry if this has been covered before, but after doing a bit of searching around, it seems that you could easily mistake some Stropharia Aurantiaca with p. subaeruginosa. Of course you would look for bluing, but say you found a patch of subs and got a bit over confident and some of these happened to be in there. Apart from the bluing is there any other distinctive trait that these guys have that can easily be pulled out from subs? I believe they can be quite upsetting if eaten...

Thanks!

[Chiral]

Well the fact they don't really look like subs for one...here are some pics pulled of the net for comparison.

[gerbil]

IMO there's no reason for mixing up species i can really think of, it's a field where mistakes can be at worst fatal and no chances should be taken. Getting 'overconfident' is no excuse realistically and fits back in with the basket of if you don't know what mushroom it is then you should not be eating it. Each individual mushroom collected should be id'ed separately.

The key features are fairly dominant and spending the time to understand them for single species of interest is of importance as is how to tell others apart from. Buy a book or search online for the taxonomic descriptions which specify it as a species if you are truly interested in understanding how to correctly identify mushrooms.

The whole mushroom is essentially the basis of id on macroscopic and microscopic level, cap, gills, colours, shape, stem, dimensions, attachments, physical changes over time i.e. color changes with drying etc.

Spore prints can be exceptionally helpful.

It is surprising how often even seasoned educated collectors collect the wrong specimen or mix a few up in their collection, realistically once you are educated on it, it comes down to laziness and often impatience at the wrong time when things get rushed, no excuse as it could be fatal. After that though that's not to say it will always be fine within an id'ed species, chemotypes and genetic variability on species i think will be an interesting topic into the future and then it comes down to people not being able to have that equipment for practical and legal reasons.

Edited May 31, 2009 by gerbil

[eexpee]

The stem seems more fibrous, the cap is darker and less moist, the gills are darker and the stem also has weird orange marks. Though to me (being inexperienced) they still could be mistaken...

I wouldn't eat anything if I didn't know what it was, i'm not one to get over confident in such a situation, it was more hypothetical for the point of the discussion. I believe though they do have some actives in them but they cause violent diarrhea...or am I wrong?

[Zen Peddler]

Sometimes they can look similar, but even mild looking aurantiaca will still have a slight yellowishness of the stem and i think they go brownish when injured if I remember - whereas subs have white to greyish stems with obviously mild to dark bluing after injury.

Aurantiaca arent deadly - well they werent for two guys at uni that ate them by mistake - expect days of violent diaherra and vomiting though. Probably not great for the old insides...