Quote:In total there are about 30 species of mushroom that have proven consistently fatal to humans, many of which are related. In addition there are a further 20 that have on occasions been known to cause death.
http://www.planetdeadly....ture/poisonous-mushrooms Quote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadly_fungi
Although many people have a fear of mushroom poisoning by "toadstools", only a small number of the many macroscopic fruiting bodies commonly known as mushrooms and toadstools have proven fatal to humans.
This Wikipedia page lists 32 deadly fungi.
Quote:How many species of fungi have been identified so far?
There are about 75,000 scientifically identified species of fungi, with scientists believing that there may be as many as a million fungal species yet to be identified. As differing species of fungi may look the same apparently, classifying them accurately is difficult, and usually requires the application of molecular tools such as DNA sequencing. Since, DNA sequencing is still expensive, even for fungi with genomes far shorter than mammals, it will likely be many decades before the majority of fungi are classified with certainty.
http://www.innovateus.ne...-species-fungi-are-there So, out of the 75,000 scientifically identified species of fungi, only between arpund 30-50 or so are known to be deadly.
So, even a high estimate puts the numbers at 50 deadly species out of 75,000 known species...50 out of 75,000.
Again, it's very important to be knowledgeable in mycology when collecting mushrooms for consumption, however, I feel the information here illustrates the scale of mycophobia in modern western culture.
If you can pay close attention to taxonomic features, and if you know how to take a spore print, and examine spores under a microscope, and you have done a decent amount of study regarding the specifics regarding your mushroom species, and it's look alikes, and you have a decent general knowledge of the fungi in your area and the risk fungi in your area, you should have no problem successfully collecting and consuming fungi.
If you know what mushroom you are looking for, and know it's season, it's habbitat, the substrate it's mycellium grows on, it's identifying taxonomic features, and the same regarding look alike species, as well ad other species which may be found in the same habitat in the same season in your area, you will locate and identify your intended species, or one of it's look alikes, which is where spore prints, or if need be microscopic examination of spores comes into play...on the way you will likely be able to recognize and identify many of the mushrooms you encounter, and since you are not consuming or collecting these this loose on sight identification is appropriate.
Galerina autumnalis is a big concern for those in the Pacific northwest who collect psilocybe species growing on wood chips, as it resembles these species, Galerina autumnalis can also be found in lawns, but does NOT resemble the common psychoactive lawn species (such as Psilocybe semilanceata (liberty caps), Panaeolus cinctulus, syn. Panaeolus subbalteatus, both these psilocybin containing lawn species DO NOT bruise blue in most cases, Panaeolus cinctulus May bruise blue at the feet, though this feature is not always present ) (some psilocybes in the Pacific northwest may be found in lawns, specially lawns growing over wood or wood chips, but can be distinguished by a simple spore print) also Galerina autumnalis does not bruise blue, while the wood-chip loving psilocybe mushrooms of the Pacific northwest do. Galerina autumnalis also has a brown spore print, where psilocybe species have purple spore prints.
Again, care needs to be taken if one is ever to consume a wild mushroom, you must be 100% on the mushrooms identity before consumption, however, mushrooms are 100% safe to collect and identify, they will only harm you if you eat them, and I encourage people to collect the mushrooms growing around them, take notes on where you collected the sample and what it was growing on, as well as what season you collected the sample in, then take a spore print (and have your microscope on hand, though you probably won't need it), then using your mushroom identification field guides and the internet, identify your species, all the information collected coupled with a spore print should be more than enough to allow you to compare to fungi in your guides, and narrow down your options until you have found your mushroom, this is incredibly easy and is not complicated in any way, as long as you can pay attention to detail and keep good records, you should be fine...
...in doing this you will learn all the mushrooms in your area, and will eventually be able to recognize them on sight (though again if one is ever considering consumption sight generally is not enough, unless it's stropharia cubensis, which is incredibly easy to identify, plus all the other coprophilic fungi that would be growing in its environment (on dung) are benign, so in some cases it's fairly easy to "know" your fungi by sight, I can recognize panaeolus cinctulus and it's look alike Panaeolina foenisecii on sight, though a spore print is needed to fully distinguish the two ) generally sight is not enough, and a spore print must be taken.
I'm confident that in one mushroom season I could teach a person to identify successfully all the fungi in their area, as well give them the skills necessary to take an unknown fungi and obtain a 100% positive identification.
Like I said, it's not rocket science, it's also not something to just jump into without knowing what your doing, however learning "what your doing" is not hard at all, and if your truly interested in mushrooms it won't even feel like research, you should enjoy learning how to identify mushrooms.
Any way, I'll stop, because while I understand the concern, I think people are overly mycophobic, I know people that are afraid to even touch mushrooms, that's how deep this mycophobia is set in their psyche, and it's honestly quite sad, it deters knowledgeable individuals from entering into research regarding these amazing organisms, it prevents people from learning about the fungi that grow around them, as well as the crucial role that fungi play in nature and the ecosystem, a senseless phobia keeps mushrooms from entering a large number of people's lives, and I feel education is they key here, the more people know, the less fear and more understanding they will have.
-eg
Other estimates regarding the number of fungi in existance:
Quote:Fungal habitats include soil, water, and organisms that may harbor large numbers of understudied fungi, estimated to outnumber plants by at least 6 to 1. More recent estimates based on high-throughput sequencing methods suggest that as many as 5.1 million fungal species exist.
In 1991, a landmark paper estimated that there are 1.5 million fungi on the Earth. Because only 70000 fungi had been described at that time, the estimate has been the impetus to search for previously unknown fungi. Fungal habitats include soil, water, and organisms that may harbor large numbers of understudied fungi, estimated to outnumber plants by at least 6 to 1. More recent estimates based on high-throughput sequencing methods suggest that as many as 5.1 million fungal species exist.
http://www.amjbot.org/content/98/3/426.full Quote:How many mushrooms are there?
This is a tough one. No one knows how many types of fleshy fungi exist in nature. There are about 10,000 described species known from North America, but everyone agrees that there are undiscovered species. Depending on who you believe, the known species are a third to a fifth of what's really out there.
http://www.mushroomthejo...data/TopTen/Quest19.html