Mushrooms · Foragr
How to identify a mushroom: a photo checklist that works
A mushroom is identified by the agreement of five features: cap shape and color, what's under the cap (gills, pores, or teeth), the stem and any ring on it, the base (is it swollen, sacked, rooted?), and what it's growing on. One photo rarely captures all five — so take three: top of the cap, underside, and the full profile including the base. Foragr reads that set and names the most likely species with its look-alikes.
And the rule that keeps foragers alive: identification is for curiosity, not for dinner. No app, book, or forum photo makes a wild mushroom safe to eat. Deadly species mimic edible ones down to the smell. Enjoy naming them — eat only what an expert in your region has confirmed in hand.
The three-photo method
Photo one: straight down at the cap, with something for scale — a coin, your thumb. Photo two: the underside, because gills versus pores versus teeth splits the fungal world into kingdoms, and gill attachment (do they touch the stem? run down it?) splits it further. Photo three: the whole mushroom in profile, dug gently at the base, because a volva — the sack some deadly Amanitas grow from — hides underground where casual photos never show it.
Photograph where it grows, too. On wood or on soil, under pine or under oak, alone or in a fairy ring — habitat is an identification feature, not scenery.
Reading Foragr's answer like a mycologist
When Foragr returns a species, read the look-alikes first, not the headline. The question that matters is never "what is this probably?" but "what else could it be, and how would I tell?" If a suggested match has a dangerous double, the result says so — and tells you which feature separates them, usually spore color or the base you photographed in step three.
Confidence levels matter too. A 95% match on a distinctive species like a fly agaric means something; a 55% match in a genus full of little brown mushrooms means "interesting find, uncertain name" — which is the honest answer for a lot of what you'll find.
The safety rules, once more
Never eat a wild mushroom on the strength of an app identification — Foragr will tell you this itself, every time. Don't handle unknown mushrooms and then touch your face; wash after collecting. Keep specimens away from children and dogs. And if someone has eaten an unknown mushroom, save a sample or photo of it and call poison control immediately — species identification genuinely speeds treatment.
Foragr AI: Mushroom ID
Snap the cap, the gills, the stem. Foragr names the mushroom and never tells you to eat one.