There is only one hard-and-fast rule to foraging wild mushrooms - don't eat anything unless you know what it is. Depending on the
mushroom, you could end up with a delicious complement to a steak or salad, hallucinating for a few hours, a little sick, very sick or dead.

"There are many edible mushrooms and many that are hazardous," said Avery Stempel, a mycologist who founded Collar City Mushrooms. "So if
you are going to venture down the mycelium pathway, learning which ones are hazardous is the first step - the first stone you should step on."

More: A tour through Albany's tulips | A surprise osprey encounter | Wildflowers of upstate New York

Mushrooms in the amanita family found on July 12, 2026, at the Ann Lee Pond Preserve in Colonie, NY. The amanita family includes hundreds of individual species with some that are edible, and reportedly delicious, some that are toxic and can be deadly and others that are hallucinogenic, according to CNN. Many of the species have "warts" on their caps and many have a ring on their stem. This is a young sample, and the brownish "scales" will become the "warts" on top of the mushroom as it matures. (Jim Franco/Times Union) (Jim Franco/Times Union)
Mushrooms in the amanita family found on July 12, 2026, at the Ann Lee Pond Preserve in Colonie, NY. The amanita family includes hundreds of individual species with some that are edible, and reportedly delicious, some that are toxic and can be deadly and others that are hallucinogenic, according to CNN. Many of the species have "warts" on their caps and many have a ring on their stem. This is a young sample, and the brownish "scales" will become the "warts" on top of the mushroom as it matures. (Jim Franco/Times Union) (Jim Franco/Times Union)

There are more than 14,000 species of mushrooms, according to the National Park Service, and that is just a tiny fraction of the millions of strains of fungus growing around the world. But the cool-looking mushrooms that come in all sizes, shapes and colors that last only days are literally just the tip of the iceberg.

A young Ganoderma applanatum, or artist conk, mushrooms found on the trail to the Rooster Comb summit on Aug. 16, 2026, in Keene, NY. They are perennials and can live for more than a decade. Artists often use the underside as etching pads. They are not poisonous but not harvested for their culinary benefits outside of in tea or tincture. Historically, they have been used for a variety of medical purposes from reliving pain to eliminating phlegm, according to the National Library of Medicine. (Jim Franco/Times Union) (Jim Franco/Times Union)
A young Ganoderma applanatum, or artist conk, mushrooms found on the trail to the Rooster Comb summit on Aug. 16, 2026, in Keene, NY. They are perennials and can live for more than a decade. Artists often use the underside as etching pads. They are not poisonous but not harvested for their culinary benefits outside of in tea or tincture. Historically, they have been used for a variety of medical purposes from reliving pain to eliminating phlegm, according to the National Library of Medicine. (Jim Franco/Times Union) (Jim Franco/Times Union)

Underground, the mycelium is a complex root system that can live for decades. The ecological benefits of mycelium, though, are beyond the scope of this presentation - and not nearly as photogenic. Humans have been eating mushrooms for centuries for their taste,
texture and "health benefits including antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antidepressive, digestive, osteoprotective, and hypotensive activities," according to the National Library of Medicine.

To get those benefits, though, the first step is identification, and that's not always easy. Stempel, armed with a stack of reference tomes, helped identify most of the photos in this collection. But even he, with his experienced eye, had a difficult time identifying many of them.

A chicken of the woods mushroom found on July 7, 2026, in the woods behind the dog park in Niskayuna, NY. They are edible if you follow a couple rules, according to Mossy Oak, such as only harvest if they are on dead trees or logs and they never grow from the ground. And, yes, according to Mossy Oak, they do taste like chicken. (Jim Franco/Times Union) (Jim Franco/Times Union)
A chicken of the woods mushroom found on July 7, 2026, in the woods behind the dog park in Niskayuna, NY. They are edible if you follow a couple rules, according to Mossy Oak, such as only harvest if they are on dead trees or logs and they never grow from the ground. And, yes, according to Mossy Oak, they do taste like chicken. (Jim Franco/Times Union) (Jim Franco/Times Union)

A big part of that was due to shortcomings of photography. To ID a mushroom, you need to look at the top of the cap, under the cap, the
stem, and determine if it is growing out of the ground or out of a tree, the species of said tree, and if the tree is alive or dead. In some cases, nuances still make it impossible to examine the spores without a microscope. A pretty picture rarely does the job.

A mushroom likely in the Cortinariaceae family, one of the largest families of mushrooms on the planet with more than 3,000 specific species. It's impossible to identify the mushroom with any more specificity with just a photo. Some mushrooms in the family are edible, but others are poisonous to varying degrees. (Jim Franco/Times Union)
A mushroom likely in the Cortinariaceae family, one of the largest families of mushrooms on the planet with more than 3,000 specific species. It's impossible to identify the mushroom with any more specificity with just a photo. Some mushrooms in the family are edible, but others are poisonous to varying degrees. (Jim Franco/Times Union)

The mushrooms in this gallery were photographed in the woods behind the dog park in Niskayuna, in the woods above Lock No. 7 in Niskayuna, the Ann Lee Pond Nature Preserve in Colonie, the Huyck Preserve in Rensselaerville, and the trail up Rooster Comb Mountain in Keene Valley. The photos were taken in the spring and summer of 2026.

Please do not ingest any mushrooms based on this information without double-checking with a reliable source. 

There's more to Albany with the Times Union. Subscribe today for just 25¢.

This article originally published at Beneath the surface: A hidden world of mushrooms.