Spore Print: White Habitat: Grows on decaying wood Edibility: Edible, a mushroom of commerce! Comments: This is one of the first mushrooms that I discovered as I began my mycology interest. It is also a fairly difficult mushroom to identify (for beginners at least). This mushroom should not be eaten by beginners since it could easily be confused with the deadly poisonous Gallerina autumnalis which also grows in clusters on wood but has a thin ring (partial veil) on the stem. One sure way to tell this apart from the deadly Galerina is that this mushroom has a white spore print and Galerina autumnalis has a rusty brown spore print. Believe it or not, this mushroom is in a genus by itself! There are no other Flammulina! This mushroom is called velvet foot because the stem feels like velvet, very soft and hairy. It's also called the winter mushroom because this is one of the few mushrooms that will actually come up through the snow!
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