Ever hear one of them plead the fifth?
“Amanita lawyer.”
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The morel [sic] of the story is, don’t introduce a topic that invites punning.
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This is a debate that has really only ever existed on the internet. For the purposes of 99.99% of iNat users and 99.99% of fungi they wish to collect/identify, it can safely be said that the manipulating or harvesting of fruiting bodies is of no appreciable conservation impact whatsoever. Large scale commercial picking of choice edible species comes with altogether different considerations, such as the base disturbance caused by the sheer volume of human beings and their impacts in and on a given habitat, but even this has been overplayed, particularly by the forest service as justification for the imposition of paid permits and fines (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12231-008-9025-8). The only small-scale fungal harvesting practice to come under serious scrutiny has been raking for truffles, which exposes mycelial mats and risks their desiccation and “scorching” by UV radiation. The extra-concerned may choose to cover up with soil any holes or patches exposed by their extraction of a terrestrial fungus. Anything further is only for the extractor’s psychological benefit, not the fungus’.
TL;DR The online hand-wringing over the bending or breaking or unearthing or cutting of this or that fungus is widely regarded by field mycologists as a non-issue.
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Thanks, very helpful to know the harvesting practice of above-surface mushrooms is not damaging. So you confirm the underlying mycellium is not damaged, also not through walking, compacting etc.?
Ditto grasses. I allow myself one culm (stalk) of each species I don’t recognize, but I feel guilty about it.
With a cell phone, it’s not impossible to get underneath the cap of larger shrooms for a pic.
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I think that the damage done for identification is negligible compared to foraging for edible fungi which is very popular in countries like Denmark.
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