What type of mushroom is this?

What's the best way to get rid of a mushroom-type fungus i've got growing on a path? ?

• There's a very weird fungus-y type mushroom explosion which has erupted on a gravel path in my garden. As I have a three year old son toddling around, I would like to get rid of it in case its poisoinous or dangerous. Please could anyone give me some advice as to the best way to get rid of it? Thanks.

• Answer:

  Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of a 'plant' that grows underground. The hidden portion, called "mycelium" spreads out looking for organic material to digest. The mycelium is breaking down old roots or other buried material. It's the natural cycle. But you don’t really care about all of that. You want to protect your child at the age when everything goes in his mouth. First, don’t panic! Kids and mushrooms have both been around for a long time. Next, read the mushroom poisoning information from the attached website. Then go out and control your little brown mushrooms (LBM). There are probably chemicals that you could drench the area with; but that doesn’t sound like an improvement does it? Since the LMB are the ‘fruit’ of the mushroom, the easy way is to simply rake up the LBM as they pop above ground. They aren’t a toxic waste and they aren’t corrosive; just toss them behind some shrub where they can compost back into your soil. If that's too much bother, you can just rake them back into the gravel. Keeping the area dry would reduce the number of LBM that emerge each time. Still, these shrooms will pop up until the food supply is exhausted. A ‘Martha’ would dig up the entire area and refill it with sterile gravel. Normal people rake out each occasional flush of mushrooms (watch for them after it rains). They will be gone soon enough.