It’s always a bonus when you can find your tea in work and I mean if you work outdoors, not in a coffee shop. Last week I found a nice group of field mushrooms on a client’s lawn, and luckily for me, a client who doesn’t like mushrooms.

Field mushrooms used to provide a reliable haul years ago in fields (as the name suggests), lawns and even on road side verges, but it’s becoming harder to find them due to loss of natural habitat and the chemical sprays used. Field mushrooms are described as having ‘a white, sometimes discoloured grey/brown, cap which can be scaly or smooth and which start out spherical on a young mushroom and then open out flat. The cuticle often hangs down over the edge of the cap and is a good indicator of a Field Mushroom. The flesh is white, bruising slightly pink and the gills start deep pink and soon turn to dark brown with maturity.’

They also smell mushroomy – which may sound obvious but is more important than you may think.

Unfortunately, as I have mentioned in the past, nature has a very dubious and bizarre sense of humour and has produced another mushroom that is very similar to the field mushroom in appearance, but it is highly toxic. The Yellow Stainer (Agaricus xanthodermus), looks exactly the same as a field mushroom to an enthusiastic forager at first glance, but it stains yellow (not pink) when bruised or cut and smells of Indian ink, hospitals or iodine (not mushrooms).

Another fungi that is often seen at his time of year as it loves damp, cool conditions, is the Jews Ear or Wood Ear which you’ll find growing on dead and decaying – and occasionally living - elder. Unlike other mushrooms, it grows all year round but seems to be more prolific and noticeable in the autumn.

They don’t look very edible (do look them up) but are used a lot in Asian cookery to flavour soups and salads. Always eat them cooked, not raw and whilst you may see recipes for use in cold salads, those mushrooms will have been blanched in boiling water first.

I have to admit to never having eaten them as they just don’t appeal, but I did find this account from Gardenista, Marie Viljoen, who describes them as a ‘delicate treat’.

“That first bite of a wood ear is memorable. If you have never eaten one before, expect a sharp crunch, as your teeth break the cap, followed by a burst of the jelly that is held between the cap’s layers. They combine an oyster slipperiness with a cartilaginous snap that may be disconcerting to first timers, but which wood ear cognoscenti expect and appreciate. Rather to my surprise, I began to look forward to that signature slipperiness: crisp, followed by slither and slurp.”

Despite their many uses in culinary and consumable products, some types of fungi are less desirable and even downright dangerous. Some are hallucinogenic, while others are just plain deadly. The Death Cap and Destroying Angel mushrooms – as the names suggest (nature does give you a bit of a clue, but only if you know the names) - are easily mistaken for several edible fungi, but they contain some of the most deadly substances known to humans. And have been used to this end in several dubious circumstances.

The traditional saying may be, ‘Know your onions’ but I think it is probably far more important to ‘know your fungi’ before picking, and more importantly, eating any of them.

As one wise forager reminded me, “Every mushroom is edible, but some only once.”