These grow on the lawn of my next door neighbour periodically through the summer, more or less under his spruce tree.
These are young specimens. When mature, the gills are brown. They have a mild pleasant odour, and no vulva at the base of the stem. Attempts to bruise or rub or cut or scrape the cap or stem do not result in any staining at all.
I’m pretty certain these are the same species as the ones that grew there last year, but I took a spore print anyway, and it was, as expected, chocolate brown. Perhaps these are Agaricus campestris, the meadow mushroom, or some related species. I believe them to be edible and in fact last year, I cooked some up and found them very tasty and suffered no ill effects. I picked a couple just to do spore prints last week. I had loads of oyster mushrooms in the fridge so I didn’t pick any of these for the pan.
Some of the Agaricus species are among my favorite mushrooms. Wish I could find more of the edible sort. Some have gills that go through a pinkish stage before turning brown with maturity and some bypass the pink stage and go directly to brown. Sometimes seeing pink gills on the younguns can be a clue as to which species you have. I have been watching an A. bitorquis for 2 days now as it struggles to work its way above the ground. This species is especially tasty but is famous for having a very short stem. So short that they sometimes dont fully emerge from the ground, you just see a bulge of white. I like to wait until the cap is open before picking it because it is easier to id that way but this one doesnt look like it will make it. I have shallots and a green pepper waiting to make a bitorquis omelet and I may lose patience in the morning and just pick it.
Agaricus is a genus that dehydrates very well and if you can get some specimens of your neighbor’s shrooms identified you can fire up the dehydrator.