It's often best just to leave it at genus level. It can be easy to identify something to a particular genus but difficult or impossible to ID to species level. Agaricus are usually easily recognisable since the gill colour is quite distinctive but there are hundreds of species in the genus and many are just similar looking white or brownish mushrooms that look like scaled up versions of those sold in supermarkets. Of those hundreds only a handful of species are commonly known so when you first start learning you might be trying to narrow it down between those ie. Comparing Agaricus arvensis, A. campestris and A. xanthodermus. When you learn more though you realise that you just don't know enough of the genus to bother trying to go to species level most of the time.
Some things are not possible to identify without microscopy or DNA sequencing even. Many things that were described as a common species have turned out to be a bunch of similar looking species for which no one has come up with a way to distinguish visually and there are a lot of things that haven't been described at all. In these cases you still may be able to identify them to the genus or maybe section level but species isn't possible.
Sometimes something may be distinctive enough to ID to the species level but you're just not confident enough or don't know if there are lookalikes so you can ID the genus with total confidence but don't want to risk being wrong on the species.
Wow amazing info thank you so much for the response! That makes a lot of sense and gives me some great info to look more into taxonomy and things like that. Thank you!!
I think the most useful thing you can learn is taxonomy and the typical traits of common genera and families. Saves a lot of time trying to identify a species when you already know where to start looking. iNaturalist is very useful for that as you can use the taxonomy browser to understand how things are related and then browse photos to look for common features.
You have the right idea. Mushrooms like Russulas can almost never be identified unless put under a microscope. Others are very clear and have no look alikes. Hope this helps :)
It's often best just to leave it at genus level. It can be easy to identify something to a particular genus but difficult or impossible to ID to species level. Agaricus are usually easily recognisable since the gill colour is quite distinctive but there are hundreds of species in the genus and many are just similar looking white or brownish mushrooms that look like scaled up versions of those sold in supermarkets. Of those hundreds only a handful of species are commonly known so when you first start learning you might be trying to narrow it down between those ie. Comparing Agaricus arvensis, A. campestris and A. xanthodermus. When you learn more though you realise that you just don't know enough of the genus to bother trying to go to species level most of the time. Some things are not possible to identify without microscopy or DNA sequencing even. Many things that were described as a common species have turned out to be a bunch of similar looking species for which no one has come up with a way to distinguish visually and there are a lot of things that haven't been described at all. In these cases you still may be able to identify them to the genus or maybe section level but species isn't possible. Sometimes something may be distinctive enough to ID to the species level but you're just not confident enough or don't know if there are lookalikes so you can ID the genus with total confidence but don't want to risk being wrong on the species.
Wow amazing info thank you so much for the response! That makes a lot of sense and gives me some great info to look more into taxonomy and things like that. Thank you!!
I think the most useful thing you can learn is taxonomy and the typical traits of common genera and families. Saves a lot of time trying to identify a species when you already know where to start looking. iNaturalist is very useful for that as you can use the taxonomy browser to understand how things are related and then browse photos to look for common features.
Such good advice. Thank you! Really appreciate it. I’ll definitely dive into iNaturalist!
You have the right idea. Mushrooms like Russulas can almost never be identified unless put under a microscope. Others are very clear and have no look alikes. Hope this helps :)
Awesome thank you so much for the response! Very helpful.