So the overwhelming thing people wanted to hear about was plant and mushroom identification. Another thing I got a lot of calls for were content more geared towards beginner and novice foragers.
One of the most foundational identification tools you'll need for wild mushrooms is knowing how to do a spore print.
What is a spore print?
All mushrooms reproduce with spores. Spores can be considered to be like seeds, except they are tiny--individually invisible to the naked eye. (There are other differences as well, but they aren't really relevant to foraging).Though we can't see individual spores, they do have a color, and when a lot of them are together, the masses of spores form patches of color, which can be seen with your eye. Sometimes these colors are distinctive, and are a necessary tool to help positively identify one mushroom from another.
Many mushrooms look similar, but have different colored spores, so discovering the colors of the spores is the key to differentiating the species. For example, edible Blewits look similar to potentially deadly Cortinarius, but Blewits have a salmon pink spore print, and Cortinarius have a rusty brown one.
