Mushrooming Easier
Why Fungi ID Apps Are Becoming Useful
When someone asks me which plant identification apps they should get my response is that it doesn’t matter which ones they pick, as long as the Poison Control App (Apple or Android) is one of them. There’s still too many flaws with the plant apps to put much trust in them. However, mushroom identification apps have become surprisingly good, for some very specific reasons that would be hard to apply to plant apps. The fungi apps aren’t to be 100% trusted but I feel they’re a useful tool for foragers, when used properly and in conjunction with certain other resources.
Why Mushroom Apps Work Well
Plant identification apps need to take into account a plant’s appearance from seedling to mature tree/weed/etc. The leaves, flowers, fruit/nuts, bar, etc often look very different. Munching insects, wind, and other things damage the plants, also affecting their appearance. No wonder plant ID apps have a hard time!
What most people think of as a mushroom is actually just a very small, specialized part of the fungus. Most of the time, fungi are just a network of mycelium running through their preferred substrate (aka “food”). But when weather conditions get just right, the mycelium quickly produce their fruiting body which is their spore producing reproductive organ. The mushrooms grows and emits its spores from these bodies in hopes that some spores will land in a place which will support their growth into a new colony of mycelium. This fruiting body is generally the only part of the fungi that people notice. Because the weather changes so rapidly, most of these fungal reproductive organs need to grow fast, but then disappear fast, too. Granted, many shelf/bracket mushroom stick around for a full season, but many of the “toadstool” types appear and then disappear in only 3-5 days. This works to the AI’s advantage because all the mushrooms of the same species will look very similar to each other during the time when they’ve caught a human’s eye. AI can handle those minor differences much better than the major differences of plants.
Which Mushroom Apps
Currently, there are about 20 mushroom ID apps available in the Apple and Google apps stores. The two oldest and only ones I’ve ever used personally are:
