Coprinus Comatus!

Or so 'WildFoodUK' says.

I had no idea what to blip today, but when I went home at lunchtime I spotted a large number of flat, golden brown to beige coloured fungi growing on my grass. They were about one to two inches across. So I took some pictures, thinking that if nothing else turned up I would use one of them for my blip.

Back at work, I parked the car and as I walked back to the hospital, I spotted what appeared to be four different kinds of mushroom erupting from the banking. There were the tall, slim ones which look like candle-lightbulbs, then beside them were slimmer stemmed indigo edged specimens. And right beside those
were some little pale grey-white jobs, which were growing flat to the ground, and looked a bit like oysters.

Just a few inches away was a small cluster of brown topped 'rooms, with dark brown fins underneath, standing about an inch to two inches high.

It's at times like that I wish I had a photo editing package, 'cos I would have loved to have put together a mash-up image showing all of those.

However, I got back into the office, and at my tea-break I was doing a random blip-surf when I saw someone else's picture of a Shaggy Ink Cap, and I thought 'Ha ha!' as I remembered that that was what one of my selection was called. And I realised that specimens 1 and 2 were the same thing, just at different stages of development.

I quickly googled mushrooms v toadstools, and tried to identify the others I'd photographed, but didn't recognise them amongst the hoard of similar looking examples.

But I am sure that my photo today is of Shaggy Ink Caps, aka Lawyers Wig or Judges Wig, Latin name: Coprinus Comatus. And to my astonishment, the blurb says this is one of the edible ones (although if it has started to turn black when you cook it, it will stain everything it touches black too!).

Apparently, the incredibly similar looking Common Ink Cap is poisonous though, and to be avoided at all costs.

I would never dare to eat a mushroom I had picked in the wild - far too much danger in that. I'll stick with what I can buy in a greengrocer or delicatessen.