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The collecting of larger fungi should not be considered a haphazard pursuit; careless collecting often results in many frustrating hours being spent on the identification of inadequate material, which is also not suitable after for preservation as reference material. A few good specimens are infinitely better than several poor ones; one is always tempted to collect too much and then collections are inevitably discarded. Always try to select specimens showing all the possible stages of development from the smallest buttons to the expanded caps. Sometimes such a range is not possible and one must be satisfied with either a couple or only one fruit-body.

Carefully dig up or cut from the substrate the entire fungus and handle it as little as possible. A strong pen-knife or fern-trowel is admirable for the job. The associated plants should be noted, especially trees, and if one is unable to identify the plants or woody debris retain a leaf or a piece of wood for later identification. One should note in a field-notebook any features which strike one as of interest, such as smell, colour, changes on bruising, presence of a hairy or viscid surface.

For transporting home the specimens should be placed in tubes, tins or waxed paper which are themselves kept in a basket. The smallest specimen can go in the first, the intermediate-sized forms in the tins or waxed paper and the larger ones laid in the basket or placed in large paper bags; plastic bags are not suitable except for very woody fungi. Thus an assortment of tins, tubes and various sizes of pieces of waxed paper are essential before setting out on a collecting trip. The specimens should be placed in the waxed paper such that they can be wrapped once or twice and the ends twisted as if wrapping a sweet.