Nova Scotia is home to a bewildering assortment of fleshy fungi—about
3,500 species in all. Many look like corals, sponges, vegetables,
pretzels, orange peel, jelly, or slime. Others actually look
like mushrooms!
It's absolutely essential to identify any wild fungus correctly
if you plan to eat it. A handful of species—some members
of the genus Amanita, for example—are deadly poisonous.
Many fungi are distinctive and fairly easy to identify, but
there are dozens of other "little brown mushrooms"—undistinguished
individuals that all look the same and send even the experts
scurrying for their specialized monographs. |
