This is all really cool. It's striking how there's both edible and potentially poisonous mushrooms all over, even in the AZ desert. Did you need multiple runs through a book on mushrooms to identify them? Or is there some digital tool or general guide to know the name of whatever I'm looking at as I see something sprouting out of my neighborhood trees and soil?
Posting photos on iNaturalist has been really useful for me! You can do that through the app Seek. When you take a photo, the algorithm suggests the best ID it can, and then when you post it, people can confirm or dispute the ID. I also use iNaturalist to see what fungi other people have observed in my area and sometimes I can find a match that way. Mushrooms Demystified is a really great and comprehensive field guide with lots of dichotomous keys if you want to do things the old fashioned way, but iNaturalist can usually narrow things down at least to a family or genus.
Would that also work for regular plants? I suspect there might be some interesting nature scattered in my suburbs, but without much botany background, I look around and see various shades and sizes of 'grass' and 'tree'.
Absolutely, iNaturalist works for plants, animals, fungi, any taxa really. Finding a good local field guide at the library to whatever you're most interested in is also a great place to start. I have great field guides to common woody plants, wildflowers, and grasses in my area that really helped me start seeing distinctions between all the different species.
This is all really cool. It's striking how there's both edible and potentially poisonous mushrooms all over, even in the AZ desert. Did you need multiple runs through a book on mushrooms to identify them? Or is there some digital tool or general guide to know the name of whatever I'm looking at as I see something sprouting out of my neighborhood trees and soil?
Posting photos on iNaturalist has been really useful for me! You can do that through the app Seek. When you take a photo, the algorithm suggests the best ID it can, and then when you post it, people can confirm or dispute the ID. I also use iNaturalist to see what fungi other people have observed in my area and sometimes I can find a match that way. Mushrooms Demystified is a really great and comprehensive field guide with lots of dichotomous keys if you want to do things the old fashioned way, but iNaturalist can usually narrow things down at least to a family or genus.
Would that also work for regular plants? I suspect there might be some interesting nature scattered in my suburbs, but without much botany background, I look around and see various shades and sizes of 'grass' and 'tree'.
Absolutely, iNaturalist works for plants, animals, fungi, any taxa really. Finding a good local field guide at the library to whatever you're most interested in is also a great place to start. I have great field guides to common woody plants, wildflowers, and grasses in my area that really helped me start seeing distinctions between all the different species.
Quite the app. I'll download it and perhaps return to my local library then. Thanks.
Awesome, thank you!