What kind of Mushroom is this?

My friend and I recently planted a small garden in an aquarium. On one end not much has grown but a white fungus, suddenly over night a mushroom sprang up and in two days has more than tripled in size. Anyone know what kind of mushroom this is?

i think the white fungus in prolly the mycilum for that cap

looks like a toads stool

Ok cool, thankyou both, I wondered mycilum but name escaped me. Toad stool, any uses?
3rd picture is of this monday evening, the fungus is only 2 days old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycelium


Mycelium (plural mycelia) is the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. The mass of hyphae is sometimes called shiro, especially within the fairy ring fungi. Fungal colonies composed of mycelia are found in soil and on or in many other substrates. Typically a single spore germinates into a monokaryotic mycelium which cannot reproduce sexually; when two compatible monokaryotic mycelia join and form a dikaryotic mycelium, that mycelium may form fruiting bodies such as mushrooms. A mycelium may be minute, forming a colony that is too small to see, or it may be extensive:

Interesting, so I think this is neat and heard that it is an important part of the cycle, is this something that I could use to benefit my summer garden?

I'm sure it would be great compost

Ya, hopfully now my compost will thaw since I built a hot house over it. Just youtube "Winter compost hot house"

that third picture looks like some of the coprinopsis we have here. that might give you a head start on your search for an ID.

By monday night it began to wilt and is now mostly dead, fast growth short life I guess.

Well, the organism is still alive - the mushroom part you see is like a flower - blooms, spreads seed (spores) ... the actual organism could live a long time underground.

In my understanding, "toadstool" is not a species, just a general term for a mushroom that is not edible. Is that what you meant, Charles, or do you mean something more specific when you say toadstool?

Identifying the species of a mushroom usually requires a lot more information than a photo. For example, I can't see if the gills are attached to the stem or not, and often it's helpful to cut the mushroom open to see if it "bleeds," or bruise the cap to see what color it turns. Mycologists say that nothing gives a more positive identification than taking a spore print.

If you start to get interested in identifying mushrooms, my favorite book on the subject is All that the Rain Promises and More by David Arora. Good photos and identification tips for both edibles and poisonous species, but also great stories contributed by 'shroomhunters of all stripes. For people who are more serious about it than I am, Mushrooms Demystified by the same author makes a good companion.

Interesting, thanks everyone!

kerrick how do you go about identifying mushrooms from spore prints. i have taken a few of some i need ID on and wondering why that is the best. are we talking individual spores or everything about them like shape, color, size, etc...

For folks who haven't done this before: To take a spore print, take the cap of the mushroom you want to identify and put it gill side down on a white (or better, half white and half dark-colored) paper. Put a bowl or something over it to keep it from moving, or if it's a really small one you could tape it down. Leave it there without moving it for 12-24 hrs. After that, carefully lift up the mushroom cap. You'll see a print of the spores on the paper.

The point as I understand it is to see what color the spores look when they're all massed together--using paper that's half white and half dark-colored is often favored to help tell the color. This isn't necessary for every mushroom, but some mushrooms look so much alike that they can only reliably be told apart by a spore print. The spore print alone doesn't tell you enough--you have to use the spores together with the other signs. But while the same species of mushroom can sometimes look different depending on different conditions, the spore print doesn't change. That's why it's sometimes a really important sign to take.

The signs that I know to look for are:

Color and general shape of the mushroom
Where it's growing, what it's growing on or in or near
Does it have gills or pores
Color of gills or pores
If it has gills, are they attached to the stalk
Is there a ring around the stalk close to the base (this usually means it's an amanita)
Does the mushroom emerge from a capsule as it grows, like it's hatching out of an egg (this definitely means it's an amanita)
Are there scales, spots, bumps, or peeling skin on the top of the cap
If you bruise it, does it turn color
If you cut it, does it turn color
Is it slimy
Finally, spore print color

There are so many different signs to look for because there are millions of different species of mushrooms, and often the differences are really slight. Mushroom field guides usually have a flow chart to tell you step by step how to ID them, and you might not need all the signs if the kind of mushroom you're looking at can be told apart from the others based on the first couple of signs.

thanks kerrick

one tip i have is to do the spore prints on a piece of glass. then you can slide either a dark or light piece of paper under to show the spores best. when i first made spore prints i would accidently put a white spored mushroom on a white paper, only leaving me the microscope to view the actual spores( too hard to see everything else)

I now have a second one growing, I will see if I can get more detailed pictures.

Kerrick wrote:
In my understanding, "toadstool" is not a species, just a general term for a mushroom that is not edible. Is that what you meant, Charles, or do you mean something more specific when you say toadstool?
.

Thtas what i meant

Ok I now have my 5th & 6th mushrooms growing and cut one up for you experts to look at. here are my pictures.

Here's a list of great ID guides for shrooms...


Mykoweb is great if you live in Cali...

The shroom docs at Cornell have a great site and look at all their friends...

And of course there is the National association tyhat might help you find a local who knows...

S
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similar to our inkycaps.. if you leave them in the ground the caps melt to a gross black inky state..but before that state they are edible

I agree with brenda groth looks like an ink cap but i'm no expert on mushroom identification.

dittto some sort of inkcap

Some kind of Coprinus probably. I don't worry about identifying any mushrooms that are too small to make a meal out of, myself, unless there is something else interesting about them.

My memory brings to mind the word shaggy when i look at the second set of photos shown here, if we are playing at guessing without running to the mushroom identifying books then i would propose shaggy inkcap and i think inkcaps can be eaten and they are not too small. I did eat one once when i was fifteen, convinced someone had said inkcaps were eatable to the horror of my teachers i was at school and did not die but i would have to look it up to see what others said.
      I think I have mushroom identifying books in this house so guessing without looking is pretty crazy. My mothers family was given to having lots of books on America great grandmother promised to leave me and, her bird identifying books when i was seven or so, they are interesting, they tell you which birds are good in an avary and which ones you can mix them with, among other things. agri rose macaskie.