Help for ppl trying to find mushrooms

[Heatsink]

For those of you asking "where can I find shrooms in my state?" No one, can answer that simply by saying "Go look in this type of field, or go look at this kind of log..."
Its not that easy, I know.
Magic mushrooms are tricky, elusive creatures. They like to hide from those looking.

Best resource to start with is a good field guide. I recommend The National Audubon Society - Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. Its easy to carry in the field, pretty well organized, has color photos, lists where and when you can find that particular mushroom, and more. Also "mushrooms demystified" by David Aurora is supposed to be good, (mentioned by Mad Hatter in Minnesota Magic Mushrooms thread, some good info there. I've never read Mushrooms Demystified, so I cant tell you more about it.
I'm sure most libraries have one or both of these books, check them out, read them before you go hunting. Please return them for the next hunter.

Next resources it Time and Patience. Their sneaky little creatures, often in the last place you look. So just keep trying.

Careful though, there are lots of look alikes and LBMs (little brown mushrooms), and many people have misidentified what they picked and suffered for it. The one sure way to identify is to take a spore print after picking the "suspected" and look at the color of the print, dark purple is good. But, even that's not entirely definite though either. Using a good microscope and slides of the spores are the best possible way to identify field mushrooms with out serious risk to newbie shroom hunters.

Good collection tools: Sharp knife, field guide, joints for the smokers, paper bags, and other hiking supplies.
The reason for the paper bags is two fold:
1. To separate what you pick, only keep mushrooms from the same colony together, to avoid mixing look-alikes.
2. Plastic containers and bags tend to cause you fresh mushies to degrade and rot quite fast.

Make you hunt fun. Go looking for shrooms but don't ever expect to find them, you hopes will be dashed often.

If you live in the southern states you got a much better chance that us in the north. Better climates.

Cow pastures are a great place start, but many farmers use non organic feed, containing fungicides, which will prevent mushies for growing, also don't get caught trespassing.

Please add to this thread if you have knowledge to share, or corrections to make.

-Good luck-

[slandshroomynewbie]

what months do they grow in the uk or does it just depend on what weather weve had?

[Heatsink]

Should be the same as the northern states. You window of opportunity is probably smaller. The more north you are the shorter the mushroom season, generally. Late spring to early fall is standard. If you've read on growing mushrooms then you know optimal growing temps are like low 70s*F to 85*F. Cultivating mushrooms at home is just us humans replicating what occurs normally in nature. So by reverse engineering the optimal conditions you can expect the best success for finding mushrooms when the seasons reflect those conditions. Nature's not a perfect incubation/grow chamber and that's why mushrooms of any kind don't grow by the billions and enslave the human race.

Certain mushrooms grow only in the spring, others in the fall, some through spring, summer, and fall. It depends on species really. I live in the US so even though there are probably many similar species of shrooms, I can't tell you directly when the grow in the UK.

Again the best resource for find mushrooms in the field is a good Field Guide and some experience that only come with effort. Theres gotta be a library near you with a guide; they all have them and most guides cover all major species, including psilocybes. It will tell you more about what you need to know than I can. Otherwise find some credible source from the internet that has info on the shrooms growing in your region/country.

[smokeymcpipe]

dose any one no wot months mushrooms grow in the uk england nd the stains if possable ??