Amanita Muscaria
Commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita Amanita muscaria is brightly colored fungus that's familiar to everyone from the illustrations found in fairy story books. commonly found in autumn in Birch woods or under Pines. The most eye-catching mushroom with its large caps of scarlet or deep red, mottled with conspicuous white warts. Also known as Fly Agaric, Fly Death, Siberian Agaric, Russian Amanita, Soma and a few others. Its distribution is from Alaska to Siberia, and Scandinavia to Central Europe, then Mexico to the Philippines. Amanita’s sometimes occurs in the form of fairy rings, small circles in which, it was assumed the witches or fairies would dance at night. growing only in symbiosis with birch and/or pine trees, Amanitas are found in artic, temperate, and even tropical climate zones.
Although generally considered poisonous, deaths are pretty rare
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Amanita pantherina
Common name :- Panther Cap A beautiful but poisonous fungus, the brilliant white veil fragments on the ochre-brown cap are a helpful distinguishing feature of the Panther Cap, as it is commonly called.
5 - 12 cm diameter; shiny brown or grey-brown with a very finely striated margin. The cap is initially domed but tends to flatten as the fruitbody matures. Pure white remains of the universal veil are dotted, usually fairly evenly, over the cap surface.
The taste:- Not distinctive, but when bruised the flesh smells slightly of radish.
Habitat :- mostly found under beech.
Gills:- White, free, crowded and fairly broad.
Stipe or Stem :- 6 - 12 cm tall, pure white and with a hanging ring, which is thin and floppy in mature specimens.
Season :- August to November. | |
Amanita Phalloides
commonly known as Death Cap Death Cap
As the name suggests is Deadly
Colour:- White to cream, greeny Yellow
Size :- 5 -15 cm
Cap :- Convex to Shield Shape
Stem or Stipe :- Ringed, bulbous base volva on stem
Spore :- White, cream or yellowish
Habitat :- Grows in woods on the ground.
Deadly! The poisons in one cap are enough to kill a healthy adult and less will be enough to kill a small child. | |
| Description :- Smooth, yellowish-green to olive-brown cap; white gills; white stem; membranous skirt on stem; cup-like structure around the base of the stem.
Cap: The young caps are close to hemispherical in shape but then flatten as they expand. When fully open they are gently curved and smooth. The colour is usually yellowish green, but may sometimes be olive to light brown. The fully open caps are commonly 10-15 centimetres in diameter. However, you can find fully mature Deathcaps with caps under 10 centimetres across, occasionally even as little as 5 centimetres. Much depends on what the weather has been doing. The cap is slightly sticky in wet weather but dry and shiny in dry weather.
Gills: White. The gills don’t reach the stem. |
Stem: The stem is white and from 5 to 15 centimetres long and 1 to 2 centimetres in diameter. The base of the stem is bulbous (up to 4 centimetres in diameter) and is contained within a cup-like structure (called a volva). Sometimes the bulbous base and the volva will be partially buried in the soil or hidden by grasses and leaf litter. Occasionally the volva is poorly developed.
There is usually a loose, white, skirt-like membrane (called a ring) around the upper part of the stem, but it’s not too hard to rub off this ring if you handle the mushroom roughly. At an earlier stage that membrane would have stretched from the stem to the edge of the cap and covered the young gills. | |
When the Deathcap is still fairly small, it is wrapped up in a smooth, white skin - called a universal veil. As the stem lengthens and the cap expands, the Deathcap breaks through that veil. The cup-like volva at the base of the stem is a remnant of that universal veil. For a short time a part of the universal veil may stay on the cap as a white patch, but this soon disappears.
IF EATEN:-
The first symptoms are stomach pains, vomiting and diarrhoea. These may continue for a day or two, after which there is typically an easing of symptoms and apparent recovery. The "recovery" period may last for 2 or 3 days. Then the terminal phase of 3-5 days starts with the re-occurrence of stomach pains, vomiting and diarrhoea - accompanied by jaundice. Without effective, early medical intervention, coma and death occur between one and two weeks after eating the mushroom. Death is caused by liver failure, often accompanied by kidney failure.
This is the most deadly fungus known, and despite years of detailed research into the toxins it contains, no antidote exists against their effects on the human body.
Common Name:
Death Angel
The Destroying Angel
Cap: White, 2-5 inches.
Gills: White
Stalk: White with a drooping skirt.
Edibility: Deadly
Amanita virosa is deadly poisonous.
No antidote is known. | |
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The Destroying Angel
5 - 10 cm diameter; pure white without marginal striations. The cap is initially egg-shaped and then bell shaped or occasionally almost flat but with a broad umbo, and is often tilted on the stem.
The GILLS are white
STEM :- 9 - 15 cm tall and often slightly curved; pure white and fibrous with an ungrooved, fragile ring high up on the stem, which if damaged can be missing.
Taste :- Slightly sickly and unpleasant odour; deadly poisonous
DO NOT TASTE.
According to some people who have eaten the death angels (and died), they have a rather good taste, so you can't trust your taste buds in picking poisonous from edible mushrooms. If you plan on eating any mushroom you must be absolutely sure of the genus and species identification. A meal, no matter how delicious, is not worth the price of your life. Habitat:-
found in mixed woodland, especially in association with Beech, on mossy ground in summer and autumn |
Description
Amanita virosa first appears as a white egg-shaped object covered with a universal veil. As it grows, the mushroom breaks free, though there may be ragged patches of veil at the cap edges. The cap is initially conical with inturned edges, before becoming hemispherical and flattening with a diameter up to 12 cm (4½ in). The cap often has a distinctive boss; it is able to be peeled and white, though the centre may be ivory in colour. The crowded free gills are white, as is the stipe and volva. The thin stem is up to 15 cm (6 in) tall, with a hanging grooved ring. The spore print is white and the spores egg-shaped conical. They stain blue with iodine. The flesh is white, with a taste reminiscent of radishes, and turns bright yellow with sodium hydroxide.
Boletus Satanas
Common Name: Satan's Bolete Satan's Bolete
Devil's bolete or Satan's mushroom
Found on chalky soil in mixed woodlands in the southern, warmer regions of Europe and North America.
Description
The compact cap can be up to 30 cm (12 in) in diameter. At first it is hemispheric with an inrolled margin, later flattening in the shape of a pad, and in older specimens it is bent irregularly. When young, the pileus is greyish white, when older it tends more to a greenish ochre or leather colour.
The surface of the cap becomes smooth later and often slightly sticky in wet weather. It does not peel. The free to slightly adnate tubes are up to 3 mm long. At first they are pale yellow or greenish yellow before soon reddening and are already entirely purplish red or carmine before full maturity.
The spore is olive green.
The stem is 5–12 cm (2–4¾ in) long and is often very bulbous (4–10 cm/1½–4 inches); usually it is wider than it is long and when young it is even almost spherical. It has a yellow background covered with a hexagonal close-meshed net that starts bright red and turns dark blood-red and which sometimes reaches to the yellowish base layer.
The flesh is whitish, though may be yellow to pale ochre when young. It slowly turns a faded blue colour when broken or bruised, although the stem bruises red.
The smell is weak when the mushroom is young, but becomes putrid in older specimens, reminiscent of carrion.
Young specimens reportedly have a pleasant nutty taste. | |
Gyromitra esculenta
commonly known as False Morel | Location, N.America, Europe
Edibility: Deadly
Colour: Brown, Grey to Beige
Size: 5-15 cm
Cap: Convex to Shield shape
Stem; Ring on stem, volva on stem, bulbous base on stem
Spore: White or cream
Habitat:- grows in woods, on the ground |
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Many mushrooms, toadstools, fungi are poisonous but some are DEADLY poisonous.
We have made every effort to ensure accuracy on this website but, in the end, the responsibility for eating any mushroom toadstool or fungus must rest with the individual.
There will/are people who are allergic to all species of mushrooms. If you collect any mushrooms to eat make sure that your identification checks out in every detail.
Never eat any wild mushroom until an expert mycologist has checked your identification.
Even when you know a mushroom well, it is still easy to misidentify.
Wweather conditions or animal damage can cause differences in appearance that could lead to misidentification.
If you suspect you have eaten a poisonous mushroom:-
Symptoms:
Stomach cramps, sweating, hot flushes, vomiting, and diarrhoea. High fever, high pulse, irregular heartbeat, lowering of blood pressure, headache, weakness, dizziness, faintness, blurred vision, constriction of the pupils, breathing and chest problems, lassitude, excessive thirst. Loss of coordination, hallucinations, vertigo, confusion, delirium, convulsions, coma.
TAKE ACTION (do not delay)
Immediate action must be taken. Telephone or visit your doctor and/or the local hospital.
to aid the doctor/hospital:-
1. time if ingestion,
2. how long before symptoms arose
3. have a specimen of the mushroom to show (dont eat all you pick)
Alternatively, if you have failed to keep specimens, make detailed notes
about the specimens that have been eaten: habitat, size, colour, type of
stem and stem base, gilled or other forms of mushroom.
The more detailed the notes the better chance a mycologist will have
of identifying the species that have caused the problems.
4. did you ingest alcohol at or around the time of eating the mushrooms
That day? The day before? Or the day after? Alcohol in conjunction
with Coprinus atramentarius may cause a severe allergic reaction.
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