Hello
Well I stumbled across this absolutely stunning
Agaricus t'other day.
When I saw it poking up through the soil from the path about 10yds away, I rushed to it. To be totally honest, I didn't really know what it was- apart from it was obviously part of the
Agaricus genus. I've had a fair bit of luck and experience in finding
Agaricus, so I'm generally rather confident- but I had my doubts about this one. I've seen
The Prince many a time and I thought though the cap had the same scale/cap pattern, the colour was wrong- it wasn't quite yellow/gold enough.
Agaricus Arvensis even crossed my mind briefly. So I photographed it, and then picked it to have a look. Didn't really bruise yellow (Which is what originally swayed me from
a. moelleri) but I remember thinking - "If this thing smells of almond, I am stumped"
So I broke off the cap and there was the distinctive and faint aroma of ink- not dislike
Agaricus xanthodermus. It was this aroma that brought all of the other features together for me to draw a mycological conclusion (cor that sounds good doesn't it?
)...
Sorry to dribble on, but what I wanted to say to the people that are relatively unconfident with
Agaricus, GIVE IT A SNIFF! It's a defining feature of this genus, and it might just assist your identification
Nick