The season is well underway - lots of interesting specimens popping up including lots of rare ones.
I want to take this opportunity to re-emphasise the site rules and what we, as wild mushroom and wild food devotees should abide by.

We have had a couple of incidents recently where people have "harvested" large numbers of fungi and also picked very rare specimens. Now mostly these people are new to the interest and really do not know what damage they are doing. My loyal and trusted site advisor, Geoff understandably gets pretty hot under the collar on this. He is a stalwart for looking after the countryside and believes passionately that people should preserve and protect what wild foods we have around them, you never know if a day will come when that is all we have!

So - once again, to all new comers and experienced people alike, here are some key rules:

1) If you do not know what it is, take a photo in-situ, make notes on what trees are around and other flora plus the terra firma, make notes on what the fungi looks like. Post your find here and someone will attempt to ID it.

2) NEVER pick a specimen just for ID's sake - it could be rare. Of course if there are lots of them in an area than you may be forgiven for looking for a damaged on to take away.

3) NEVER go and harvest like it’s Christmas Eve and you have forgotten the presents! Only pick what you know you can eat and only pick in a sensible quality. This site does not encourage or support pickers who over-harvest the countryside. People who do that are irresponsible and not welcome here.

4) When you collect - ALWAYS leave at least 70% behind of what you find. So if you come across a small group of edibles, say 10, only take 3. This is a good rule of thumb.

5) Always be very careful not to damage the underground mycelium - use a knife to cut the stem

Right  - got that over with. I want this site to helpful and useful to all - I do not want to be concerned that people are using it as a vehicle to mass harvesting through having a quick online Identification.

OK on to some nicer news, Geoff has been out again and posted another interesting story - here it is