My friend has found these mushrooms in his yard but he can't identify it. He tells me he threw a frog on his pea gravel and it urinated in the spot and then a few days later the mushroom in the first two pictures began growing. The third picture is another mushroom that doesn't really have a story behind it, but we can't identify that one either. If anyone could shed some light on this subject, it'd be much appreciate.
The first one is probably Ganoderma applanatum. It is also know as artist conk because the bottom white part turns brown when pressed, so sometimes it is used to make pictures. It is stiff and woody. The second one looks a lot like an Amanita. The Amanita genus has many more deadly species than edible ones, so please don't eat it. I'm just a teenager who is very interested in fungi, so my identification may be completely off. EDIT: You may want to put this in the Fungi ID forum.
How would I go about identifying the species of amanita that might be? And also, how to move this thread to the other board.
If you still have the mushroom and up for a possible challange, get a field guide for your area or search the internet for fungi ID sites. But before you do that, please start to think that you may of found something good to eat because most Amanita's, especially the white ones, are deadly posionous! http://www.mushroomexpert.com/ For instructions about identifying fungi: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/identifying.html For a key to a few common and distinctive Amanita's http://www.mushroomexpert.com/amanita_commondistinctive.html
Maybe also an agaricus, or a leucoagaricus. Ring is similar to amanita genus. Have you got other photoes? Ok for Ganoderma, sp. Dear link, how old are you (i'm 20) :)
Some Ganodermas grow in form like G. applanatum but are other G. species. If it is still there, you could scratch the white under-surface with your fingernail: If you get a black mark then it should be G.applanatum artists conk. If not, it could be another G. species, such as G. tsugae. Regardless, it is probably growing on buried wood and either is unrelated to the frog pee, or the urine inspired it to fruit either by being good additional nutrition, or conversely by being a threatening addition to the soilscape. And yah distrusting white amanitas seems like a good policy :-) frog
