>>1145403Yeah, C. odora is edible, though not commonly consumed to my knowledge. When it comes down to it a lot of mushrooms are in that category, and many species described as poisonous are eaten widely in other cultures. Your Clitocybe are a good example. Many in the genus are toxic, so if edibility is unknown or not well described (unpopular) it is common practice to just assume it is also poisonous.
The best strategy is to go through poisoning reports, which are scarce for some countries but thankfully plentiful for North America. Making sure no crazy reports are filed, and then doing some googling to check reports of edibility, are good steps to take.
LBMs are a hassle, and I agree with you, are hard to tell apart. The first thing I do is look at cap color, and the margin, is it slimy, is it striate, does it have a pellicle? Then I look at the gills on both mature and immature specimens (this often reveals spore color without actually taking a print). With that info, you can get most common genuses worked out. Getting further than genus is more than I'm willing to put my time in for, unless the species is relevant in some way, IE Psilocybin containing, cool cultural characteristics, bioluminescence, etc.
Mycena are probably the most common LBM that will get picked up as semilanceata, since they are just dirt common and share habitat. Psathyrella contains a ton of close lookalikes, and can be differentiated through the lack of a gelatinous pellicle, which requires snapping the cap apart.
If all you are doing with LBMs is trying to find Psilocybe, you can very easily get accustomed with all the relevant features you need to find. If you want to do something like write a paper on an LBM, you are shit out of luck unless you own a microscope and have friends who can corroborate an ID. Pic related is an LBM worth a paper and a microscope: Psathyrella aquatica, the worlds only recorded fully aquatic mushroom, recorded in my home state.
