Among them is the genus Amanita, whose members have telltale common names such as death angel, fool's mushroom, and destroying angel. Armed with illustrated books and a big jar of dried mixed forest mushrooms imported from France, Gecan demonstrates how difficult it can be to distinguish similar looking species. He emphasizes that even experts can't know all there is to know to identify every kind of wild mushroom, because of their great diversity. Ascomycetes bear spores enclosed in a sac- like cell called an ascus. They include the cup fungi, false morels, and true morels.
Basidiomycetes bear spores on one end of a specialized cell called a basidium.
Gecan, whose primary expertise is identifying morels and their look-alikes, illustrates the complexity of the task. The three can easily be confused by an inexperienced harvester, as their distinguishing features are not conspicuous. The stem of the poisonous early false morel also attaches at the very top of the cap, but it has only two to four large spores per ascus. There's such an economic gain to be had here that people are going out knowingly including the toxic Verpa bohemica in their harvest of edible morels. He tells of an importer who admitted that some harvesters will pick up anything that looks like a morel, adding that some pickers even stuff them with stones to increase the weight.