I know that the “correct” answer is that each observation is for a single entity. Where I run in to a problem though, is how do I approach a case where the features required to identify the species are spread over multiple entities of the same species?
In this case, I took several photos of fungi. I only have one photo that shows the gills of a live specimen, but I forgot to get a good photo of the top of the cap for this individual. However I have photos of the top of the caps for other mushrooms in the same cluster, as well as photos of the gills of a third mushroom that had been knocked over and started to dry out.
How do I best record these observations so that someone who knows fungi better than I do has access to all of the information I captured across the separate mushrooms in the cluster?
I think one observation is likely fine, especially for something like fungi. Please correct me, mycologists, but they could all be fruiting bodies of the same organism, correct?
Yup, they’re absolutely all probably fruiting bodies of the same organism. Posting different mushrooms of the same flush in one observation is totally normal - if you feel the need you can make a note that the pictures are of multiple fruiting bodies, but its not fully necessary. Honestly, it can be a huge boon to identification to have pictures of the basidiocarps in different stages of development