I've got a book on Mushrooms by Peter Jordan - in the back, he recommends you go to your local library (if you've still got one that is) to see if there are any local groups who go on forays, usually led by a mushroom expert. Otherwise, you could try contacting the British Mycological Society - they have a website with lots of info, don't know if they have lists of people who might be able to help.

If there are Forestry Commission woodlands in your area they often hold 'Fungus Forays' which are open to everyone.

Have you tried contacting the organisers of the courses that fill so quickly to see how to get to know about them earlier?

I have seen a bright lilac mushroom recently - the most pretty thing with slender upright stem and flatish head. Edible or poisonous?

If you have to ask, Avkg, then it is not edible!!! Bright lilac - poisonous!

There are at least three small lilac ones, though the best known edible one only has a lilac stem, and the cap is brown. Yours is most probably the extremely common amethyst deceiver, Laccaria amethysta, which grows on soil, often in groups and is edible.It has lilac gills. The third one is Inocybe geophylla, var lilacina, more slender than the others with a cap more the shape of an African hut. Its gills are buff.
That one is also very common but poisonous.

Confusing species can be dangerous so do not take risks until you have consulted an expert. I have often found the Laccaria, but never plucked up courage to try it!

If you want to make a start on edible ones there are two which are unmistakeable - the lawyer's wig or shaggy ink cap (tall, thin and white with scales, the cap goes black and runny when old) - edible but a bit insipid and I don't think its worth the bother. And the parasol mushroom, well named, exactly like a parasol,and can be anything fro 15-30cm tall: Lepiota procera which has a double moveable ring on the stem The only one it can be confused with is Lepiota rhacodes, the shaggy parasol which is less tall and has bigger chestnut patches. Both are quite delicious but the second can upset some people. (We tried it not knowing this and were quite OK)

If you ever think you have found a field mushroom with pink gills maturing to brown,just like the shop ones, always try bruising the flesh with your finger, both the cap and the stem. If a bright yellow stain appears leave well alone. If it has white gills leave it where it is.

You are a wee bit late for local forays this year Slugitt but there are usually a fair number in September and October each year, all over the place. If there is a local Ramblers' Club they quite often make the autumn meeting fungus forays led by skilled mycologists. I don't know how close you are to the Herts border but we have active local groups here.

Have a look at this link: http://www.britmycolsoc.org.uk/mycology/recording-network/groups/ I can't see an Essex group but maybe one of the London ones would suit you?

Send me a message if you are fairly close to Harlow and we could maybe meet up and talk/seek fungi....I am usually not in the UK during the best of the season but one can still find things at this time of the year......

This is very interesting. I've often wanted to pick wild fungi, but have been put off in case I happen to pick something that's poisonous and will harm or even kill me. Supermarkets seem to sell more exotic mushrooms now than then used to do and I just know that there must be lots of different types out there in the wild that I haven't yet tried.

Is it legal to take mushrooms from the wild? I've heard that it's been illegal for a few years now to take ANYTHING from the wild, including pebbles from the beach and even a birds feathers?

I spent a little time in France where everyone goes "mushrooming". If you find anything you think edible, you can take it to the local Chemist for identification.
I have a large group of fungi, just on the grass verge outside my house, I will take a pic and try to post it.

Thank you all for the help, I do appreciate it. Your knowledge never ceases to amaze me and makes me realise I have a lot to learn.

Unfortunately, I don't live near Harlow, otherwise I would certainly take you up on your offer Cestina!

@ Myron, I had a look online

"Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981, which covers Britain, it is illegal to uproot any wild plant without permission from the landowner or occupier. Uproot is defined as to dig up or otherwise remove the plant from the land on which it is growing, whether or not it actually has roots; and, for the purposes of the legislation, the term plant includes algae, lichens and fungi as well the true plants mosses, liverworts and vascular plants. Similar general protection is given to all plants in Northern Ireland, under the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order, 1985.

Even plants growing wild are the legal property of somebody, and under the Theft Act, 1968, it is an offence to uproot plants for commercial purposes without authorisation."

Basically if you have permission and you do not sell them, you can take mushrooms from the wild. I quite often take seeds from interesting looking plants wherever I go and I doubt anyone would bother with that.

That's a shame Sluggit.

You can do the same with chemists in Germany - my son had a theory that if you went in with particularly delicious specimens the chemist would identify them as poisonous and take them home for his own dinner.....

I just found a fascinating programme in the Saving Species series on BBC Radio that you can still pick up on-line here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016ld4x

Thank's Kildermorie. Just that someone told me that because people were taking plants, rocks and other pieces of natural features for gardens, it was becoming a problem and they passed some legislation. To make it easy to enforce and cover all the loopholes, they just said ANYTHING in the wild. Maybe he was wrong?

Also, I recently read in my local paper about a lady who took her dog to the park and picked up a fallen piece of branch from a tree to throw to her dog. When it was time to go home she just threw the piece of wood into the boot of her car for the dog to play with later and drove home.

The park ranger saw this and phoned the police. The police called to her house and wanted to charge her with theft, but told her that if she took the piece of wood back to the park they would take no further action. Crazy or what? The police won't usually turn up if you get burgled, but will turn up in force if someone reports that you took a bit of fallen tree from a public park!

Unbelievable!! Or these days, sadly perhaps not.

Oh surely that's not true, Myron, is it? I find it difficult to believe, not least because you mention 'park ranger', a species I thought extinct a long time ago, and then because this extinct being rang the police and apparently got an answer (rings for hours here) and then a member of that rare species, an actual policeman, turned up! I couldn't get them out on the one occasion when drugs were being dealt on the communal front lawn here (private property), nor when 2 blokes were breaking into every car out front at 2 a.m. in the morning... They said they'd come, but they never did...

Park Ranger, Park keeper or park gardener, I'm not sure which, but it was some worker of the park. I've been trying to Google it in the hope of finding the story but had no luck.

Even if you did find it, it's not necessarily true - you know how papers like to whip up a bit of controversy - example, the Daily Mail used always to print stories about what the EU was banning, such as curved cucumbers, bananas that were too bendy, etc., and they were absolute fairy tales. Not to mention their suggestion that the drought we experienced here in the south a few years back was apparently caused by all the immigrants drinking all our water. Could be true where you are though, I was really being tongue in cheek - we certainly don't have park keepers or anything resembling them here and haven't had for 20 years.

I know what you mean, but I seem to remember there was a photo of the woman and her dog in the paper. Apparently the police had to turn up as a complaint had been made, they gave her the option of taking the piece of wood back and wouldn't prosecute her. I think I would have insisted that they take me to court just to show how silly it was.

Me too, I'd have said prosecute and kept the bit of deadwood as evidence. Gives full credence to that old saying the law is an ass...

I don't think you'de have been given the chance to keep the wood as YOUR evidence. The police would have confiscated it to use in court as THEIR evidence. If you were found not guilty though, you would probably have been allowed to keep it. Haha.

Well, the other option is simply to deny you took it - its just a piece of wood, could have been from your own garden, what a waste of time and energy...

So probably if you kicked a mushroom over in the grass nobody would complain, but if you took it home you might risk prosecution. What a world we live in.

Maybe kicking it over would be criminal damage and taking it home would be theft?

Right, so off we go to prison on two counts!!

THREE, if you sell it... ;o)

lol