Improve Your ID Skills With Quizzes

It’s tough to improve your mushroom identification skills when there are no mushrooms around and you can’t discuss ID’s in person. One thing that can help is a computerized quiz. Here are two to consider.

MycoMatch Quiz

MycoMatch (MatchMaker) is a wonderful, free application for identifying and learning about Pacific Northwest mushrooms. It includes a great quiz feature.

It asks you to pick the names of random mushrooms from MycoMatch’s photo collection.

You can make the quiz easier or harder in a number of ways: include only common species, add more questions, use English common names, etc.

I recommend this quiz to anyone who has completed the OMS Beginner ID class or has equivalent skill levels. You can download MycoMatch at https://www.mycomatch.com/

MyCoPortal Fungus of the Day

If you’re interested in taxonomy, phylogeny, and mushrooms from all of North America, check out MyCoPortal. (MyCoPortal is a database of all North American mushroom specimens from US herbaria. It also includes citizen science observations from Mushroom Observer and iNaturalist.)
MyCoPortal’s Fungus of the Day challenges you to name the family, genus, and species of the pictured mushroom.

I’ll bet most of you know the genus of this mushroom, but it’s a tough quiz. (I’ve never got one completely right.) However, that makes it a great learning tool.

Find Fungus of the Day on the home page of MyCoPortal.

— Joe Cohen