An easy one to see

This is one of North America's easiest mushrooms to find. If you frequent the Missouri woods during summer, you have probably seen one of these big red mushrooms. It is an amanita.

There are several kinds of amanita in the world. The most common one in Missouri is called fly amanita as well as fly agaric. It will most likely make you very sick if you eat one. My advice is do not eat it!

Basic parts of the fly amanita that are easy to see from my photo here include (from bottom): the stalk, the skirt/ring and the cap. The stripes on the outside of the cap are called striations. The lines on the underside of the cap are called gills.

The fly amanita usually has white dots on its cap and can grow to about 8 inches tall.