Shaggy mane are a choice edible, but they'll dissolve into black goo in a matter of hours after being picked.
And they absorb toxins, so not ideal if near a highway. And they interact with alcohol so no alcohol with your meal.
To your second point, no they don't. Coprinus comatus does not contain any benzocoprines, and does not interact with alcohol. Coprinopsis atramentaria is the one you are referring to. Completely different genus - and not one I'd recommend eating anyways, besides the alcohol interaction they have been found to cause testicular lesions!
The goo is edible too! Flavor intensifies with this process. Some folks like to use it for pasta or sauces, kind of like a vegan squid ink
Had no idea. Good to know. Now it only I could find some in my area.
Yes, that’s what it looks like.
I don’t think they look similar to anything so probably fine to eat. Always a good idea to take a spore print to help with ID, tho’.
iphones have a built in app for this?
At least on my Samsung, Bixby Vision immediately identified it as coprinus comatus. I assume iPhones have a similar feature in the camera app.
All it does is search the web for related images, and in this case, all the related images were of that exact same mushroom. I clicked one of the images, and found the name of the mushroom.
When you're looking at your picture there's a little "i" you can click on and it'll list related web searches.
Interesting, thanks. There are dedicated image scanning apps to identify plants, I assumed you used one of those. I guess this mushroom is just easy to identify.
Mycology