This is (a rough working version of) a proposed folk taxonomy of macrofungi for North America. Just as a Linnaean taxonomy organizes scientific names, a folk taxonomy can organize common names. This is the framework I'm using for common name proposals, and for writing about mushroom identification in general.

Hopefully, others might find this, or the idea behind it, useful as well. Organizing mushrooms from a human perspective can be useful for a few practical purposes: identification, organizing foray tables. It can also be interesting to compare and contrast with the phylogeny (evolutionary relationships). It might raise interesting questions: why these forms arose and not others, why some forms are diverse and others are not, why some boundaries are sharp and others are not.

In phylogenetic taxonomy, the topology (the arrangement of species into nested groups, represented by branches of a tree) is objective. There is one true evolutionary history, and this dictates the topology, and hence the taxa. In common (folk) taxonomy, the topology is subjective. Species are grouped according to whatever similarities are most important and convenient for the people and purpose(s) at hand. The common (folk) taxonomy on this page is focused on field features of mushrooms—those that can be observed with naked senses. In developing this, I am constantly checking the phylogeny as an inspiration and a guide, but the point is that this taxonomy is not beholden to phylogeny.

This page is in progress. All categories are subject to being renamed, reorganized, etc. Goals:

• many of these names are unfamiliar ("made up")—hovering on high-level names should provide definitions.
• intermediate/overlapping forms should be communicated somehow.
• clicking on low-level names should provide a page with a list of names of all North American genera included.
• Those names of genera should link to their entires on the common names page.