In particular, know how to identify the common and deadly species (eg: much of the genus Amanita) yourself, and get multiple trustworthy field guides for your part of the world.
In particular, know how to identify the common and deadly species (eg: much of the genus Amanita) yourself, and get multiple trustworthy field guides for your part of the world.
Finding random mushrooms and learning to identify them (which includes learning if they are edible) is absolutely how you should start in amateur mycology, especially if you don’t have any mycology groups nearby that you can join. And if you do, you know what that group will do? Gather random mushrooms to learn/teach identification.
Just don’t go around eating random stuff.