I apologize for budging in like this, but I need to say this.
Don't identify a mushroom from pictures alone. Particularly across greater geographic distances. There are simply too many confusions to be made if you don't take into account details that do not lend themselves to photos, such as spore prints, membrane remnants (collars etc.) and discolouration characteristics, to name but a few. Add to that that some fungi are highly allergenic to some people, disqualifying the "but I have eaten these for years and never took harm" argument.
Okay, end of rant. Carry on and enjoy. After all, [edible] mushrooms taste wonderful (and so do some of the other ones).
I stand by every word of your statement: doubt should be the leading principle in mushoom collecting, when even the slightest trace of doubt is present, avoid!
Re allergy: my own father discovered the hard way he was allergic to morels (
Morchella sp.), one of the few mushrooms that are sold in markets and are generally considered as among the best ones. He was alone in the house... Fortunately he was an MD, and he knew what to do, otherwise a widow and three orphans would have come back from the Harlem Globetrotters' basketball game we had attended. He was not feeling very well that evening, so he skipped the game. He had eaten morels. I decided not to try morels myself, maybe that allergy is genetic.
We saved at least three groups from certain death, they had collected basketfuls of Death Caps (
Amanita phalloides), in one instance they said they were penny buns (
Boletus edulis), in another instance they said "there were snails feeding on them, they can't be poisonous!". Naturally, snail physiology is different from human's... I wonder what happens if you eat escargot having fed on A.phalloides?
When I gave advice to Frank, caution was always present, and I stressed the fact that identifying a mushroom by a photo is like diagnosing a patient over the phone: simply too many variables to have an accurate diagnose.
Ciao from Massimo
