What the #%@! is this fungi?

​Recently, I was humbled by an iNaturalist experience after posting a mushroom (see photo). I assumed this 'shroom I saw in the redwoods was Dyers Polypore. Two iNat members subsequently confirmed the identification. However, months later, a third message was posted indicating my identification was incorrect, and I pressed the "disagree button." I blew it off, dismissed it, turned a blind eye. 

If you haven't used the app yet, iNaturalist is a valuable tool for identifying plants, including mushrooms, lichen, and animals. Point your iPhone camera, and voila, instant gratification. The identification of that lovely leaf or flower is a marriage between AI and crowd sourcing.  However, most folks share that photo on iNat, and immediately have an expectation to find the right answer. (This is called positive bias.)

Let’s be real, the human brain can only hold a limited amount of information at once, and errors happen. (There are likely over 2,000 species of mushrooms in Santa Cruz County!) If you’re not an expert, it’s easy to commit to incorrect identifications. The longer it takes to make an ID, the probability of an error increases. 1

The person who disagreed with my little Dyers Polypore ID also provided a link in the comments of my post. It included a science paper that supported their claim. Even worse, I dismissed a mycologist! The study suggests two new species rearranged the phylogeny (the evolution of a species). Dyers Polypore (formerly Phaeolus schweinitzii) is now Phaeolus hispidoides. It doesn't have a common name at this point. According to the paper, the DNA-sequenced California Phaeolus fungi have all turned out to be P. hispidoides. That's a lot of fungi postings to correct in iNaturalist! By the way, it's non-edible, but can be used for yellow dye. Check out the California fungi in iNat.

Going forward, it may be worthwhile determining what exactly is going on before deleting an observation. There are a number of iNat users that provide good advice. Rather than deleting an observation, it might make sense to start a dialogue with the IDer(s) and/or tag other users to get a different point of view.  I will do better next time!

PS—The person who shared this valuable info is Allen Rockefeller. He has been recognized by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American, and multiple other publications.

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iNaturalist classifications