Hi All, several weeks ago I posted a question about whether Amanita mushrooms growing in my veggie beds and touching the surface of the veggies were a concern for eating said veggies (https://forums.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/threads/death-caps-amanita-in-veggie-garden.105272/). I was asked whether I was sure they were in fact Amanita, but they didn't resurface for a while, so I didn't have pictures to show. I do now. Three photos are of a remnant of a big one, cap is maybe 4-5" in diameter. Has a skirt. Photos are taken as it was found. Three photos are of a pair of smaller ones, caps maybe 2" in diameter. Had skirts. Photos are taken first in the veggie bed as they are growing and then I took them out and photographed tops and underside. No big trees nearby. Squash, spinach and sorrel in the veggie beds and leafy bushes a few feet away. The biggest tree around is a Rose of Sharon. Would really appreciate any thoughts on whether these are Amanitas. I won't eat them regardless of the identification, but maybe will freak out a little less about the veggies growing there. THANK YOU!
On the first three photos it looks like Agaricus (gills look like light pinkish brown). AFAIK, Amanitas have white underside of cap.
The first three photos seem to show a different species than the last three. The former do look like Agaricus, but I don't see any pink in the gills, just some browning due to rot. To get a better idea of what they are, spore prints should be obtained, and the whole stalks, including the base, should be dug up and photographed. None of them look like Amanitas, but more information is needed.
I can't see any rot on the very first photo. Inside of the cap seems to be pure white, just gills are light brown.
My wild guess about the first 3 photos - Agaricus hondensis – Mushrooms Up! Edible and Poisonous Species of Coastal BC and the Pacific Northwest The mushroom is just badly damaged by slugs or some beetle.
Or maybe Agaricus xanthodermus (MushroomExpert.Com) It says that its gills are whitish at first. So it might be, that those smaller specimens on the bottom 3 photos are also the same species. I kind of see light yellow hue on bruised spots, especially on the base of the stem (on the last photo). This species is more consistent with your location. A. hondensis in from PNW, that I assumed to be your location without checking.
Hi All, THANK YOU so much for your replies. I have no plans for eating any mushrooms from my yard, but it would be reassuring if these are not Amanitas. It's very possible that what I had several weeks ago was different. I don't remember what color the underside was, but the tops were blue-ish, and they grew to be a very large size (5-6") without animals and slugs being interested in them. I'll post additional (better) pictures if anything else comes up, though the season could well be over. We had a really intense crop of white mushrooms I thought were Amanitas in ~July and I carefully destroyed them all. Yes, I am in mid-Atlantic, not PNW.
I am not good at naming colors in English (it's not my native language). If you can name more precise color for these gills, I would be happy! To me, it looks like a lighter grade of the pinkish brown, kind of like the #E4C0BD
@Sulev, to my eyes the gills in the adjacent photo look nothing like the chart color; they look grey, which I attributed to shading of what could be white gills. I based the browning color on the rightmost photo in the top row of the first comment; it is much chewed up by slugs and seems to have areas that have started to rot as a result. Edit: On second thought, after magnifying the photo 500%, the gill color seems to be grey-brown, with no hint of pink or red.
@vitog Grey is just a grade of white, as the part with brownish gills on the adjacent photo is shaded (you can see, that the flesh of the cap, that is supposed to be pretty much pure white, is gray), you should remove (in your mind) as much grey from the photo, as it is needed to convert greyish looking flesh of the cap (right next to the gills, where slugs exposed the flesh) into its true white. About picking pink notes, does your eye picks pink notes from the #351C1A or #643B38 on the pinkish brown shades above?
Ok, I distrust my eyes, but I trust my GIMP. Picked up the actual color from the circled area of gills on the photo. Then pushed saturation slider to 100%. Then painted right edge of the image to resulted color. According to RGB values (45.9, 42.0, 41.2) Red is dominating.
Did Google search for #E4C0BD The resulted color field is pretty much the same to my eyes, just lighter by the amount my eyes consider to be attributed to removing the shade from the photo.
