While Marasmius oreades is fairly common in southern Australia I never expected it to show up in my neck of the woods. Facebook has certainly revolutionised the mushroom community and I find the mushroom pages a very useful tool for seeing what occurs where. The other day in the middle of summer after quite some rain the above photo was posted for an ID request from one of the villages in the New England table lands west of Coffs Harbour. I got up there for a look a day too late but there was lots of patches growing on the golf course. Some had been mowed while others had dried up. Still I had a bag saved for me so I was able to have a proper look and bring some home for a sample.

M. oreades is a highly regarded edible and is known for its strong pleasant mushroom flavour. Cooking these I was impressed by their good flavour and texture. There are a few key ID features with this fungi, one is their ability to rehydrate. They are such a thin and delicate mushroom so they dry out quickly but will spring back to life with rain. Personally I am a bit weary of eating older mushrooms so for me I would avoid these rehydrated mushrooms but some sources say they are still good. Another feature is the very tough stem, you can bend it in half and it will not snap, its probably best to discard the stem when cooking. They also have a white spore print and widley spaced gills that do not run down the stem. Their habitat is lawns and meadows and they seem to like well looked after grass. As such its probably worth considering where they are growing and what fertilizers or herbicides etc have been in use near by. Its also important to carefully ID these mushrooms because the lookalike list is very long and some are poisonous. The above features are a good guide to at least the main identifying features.