I can't for the life of me figure out what this is. I found it growing in some woods on my University's grounds, and thought I'd take some pictures of it (I like photographing mushrooms). I know it's an Agaric, but it doesn't match any pictures I can find (the specimens were kind of small). It smelled delicious and sweet, and didn't have white spores (they were brown), so I was definitely tempted to eat it, but I refrained :P Any ideas? Here are some pictures: EDIT : See my next reply, they're attached.
Woops, Google's Picasa still has some bugs with direct linking I guess, or maybe it was just user error :P I attached them below.
You don't mention where your university is. That would be helpful. Also some idea of the size of them. There is nothing in the photos for scale. A smell of almonds or maraschino cherries ? To me they most resemble Agaricus blazei. There is a lot of controversy about this and related species as to their distinct identities. Agaricus blazei, brasiliensis, subrutilescens and augustus are all contenders for being a single species (weasel phrase) "according to some". Don't eat it on my say so, but it may give you a line of further inquiry. Good luck, and thanks for posting.
It's the University of Florida in Gainesville. The cap size was about 3-5 inches in diameter (some small, some big). It's been a bit dry out, so they may have been bigger if it had rained some. Yeah, there was definitely an almond odor. I suppose I could perform an amatoxin test (I could knick some HCl from my chem lab) to be sure. Thanks for the tip!
While we're talking about the Meixner Test for Amatoxins (the one using HCl) ... Everyone should do a positive control before they put stock in their results. I tried a few times on a known sample Amanita before I got the hang of it and saw a positive result.
Agaricus blazei is so named because it was first found on the lawn of R.W. Blaze in Gainesville Florida. This is no guarantee that this is what you've found, but it's at least possible, which it wouldn't be at UBC, for example. These are both tasty and medicinal if you can confirm the ID. Happy Hunting I'd love a spore print if you wouldn't mind mailing it. Jeff
@Jeff - Yeah, I took a sample (dry now) and got a couple spore prints. I can't say they're sterile, so you may have to do a double-agar transfer to get a pure strain, but it wouldn't be a problem to mail it. I added you as a friend/contact on the forum, so send me a PM. Out of curiosity, would you happen to have any spore prints of any edible species? I don't want to impose, but mutual favors are always nice. -Scott
Hey there Fish Dr. Would you send me the ref. for as that is really interesting! I'm not large with Agaricus knowledge, but I did have a general impression that A. blazei is a subtropical and A. augustus is a temperate species: Was the assertion from a recent DNA analysis? thanks :-) -frog
I don't remember where I saw it, but as I remember it, the controversy was awaiting DNA work to sort it out. No one said whether or not it was scheduled, as I recall. I find name controversies irritating mostly and was probably rolling my eyes rather than giving close scrutiny. A quick search for the four species designations yielded 90 hits including the first one that seems to be right on point: http://www.mycologia.org/cgi/content/full/97/1/12 Hope this is of interest to you. Best regards
Thank you for the link Fish Dr - I enjoyed the abstract and the intro (left the rest rather than hurt my head). I enjoy the taxo stuff sometimes, though I get irritated when "they" threaten to discard names I like, such as Chroogomphus (i find saying it with extra oooo's is even better), or replacing perfectly good names that I've finally managed to memorize, and spell correctly, with things like Kretzschmeria (bleah). :-) frog
