Edible mushrooms. Historical artwork of three kinds of edible mushroom. The common or field mushroom (Agaricus campestris, top three images), the common chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius, yellow, lower left) and this type of morel (Morchella esculenta, lower right) are all edible, though some morels can be poisonous. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of a fungus. They develop and release the reproductive spores that will form a new fungal body. From The Instructive Picture Book or Lessons from the Vegetable World, Charlotte Mary Yonge, 1857.