Poisonous Mushrooms in Northeastern North America

It is important to know that there are at least 10 reasons why people get sick from eating EDIBLE mushrooms:

1. Too many mushrooms are eaten – mushrooms are hard to digest; chewing well is advised.
2. Mushrooms are eaten raw or undercooked.
3. Too much butter is used in cooking the mushrooms.
4. Alcohol sometimes causes an adverse reaction when eating mushrooms.
5. The mushrooms are not in good condition; they are in some state of decomposition.
6. Some poisonous mushrooms are inadvertently mixed in with the edibles.
7. A personal allergy can cause anything from GI distress to a rash.
8. A prescription drug (MAO inhibitor) can cause a reaction with particular mushrooms, such as polypores.
9. Edible mushrooms that are badly canned can cause botulism.
10. A GI reaction (cramps, diarrhea) or nausea may occur after a meal, not related to the mushrooms eaten. A pre-existing virus may cause this.

There is also the Fear Factor. Someone may be eating wild mushrooms at your table for the first time ever, and be petrified, and become, or imagine becoming, ill because of stress.

Mushrooms known to cause death in Northeastern North America:
1. Amanita virosa AG 551
2. Amanita phalloides AG 543
3. Galerina autumnalis AG 620
4. Lepiota josserandii AG 517
5. Gyromitra esculenta AG 336

Because of the very real possibility of misidentification (for whatever reason) and the very real consequences of severe mushroom poisoning, the following is advised:

Do not eat any Amanitas even though some are known to be edible.
Do not eat any LBM (Little Brown Mushroom).
Do not eat any small species of Lepiota.
Do not eat any large Lepiota without first finding out its spore color. Definitely avoid the green-spored Lepiota, Chlorophyllum molybdites -- it will make you seriously ill.
Do not eat any Gyromitra (False Morel), at least not when found east of the Mississippi River.
Do not eat Jack O'Lantern, Omphalotus olearius, mistakenly thinking it is a chanterelle. --
Always keep a fresh specimen in the refrigerator, in case identification is needed for treatment.

Mushrooms to be avoided because a few species in Europe have caused kidney failure and the toxins are found throughout the genus:
Cortinarius, all species -- AG 610ff.

Mushrooms known to cause muscarine-like symptoms [profuse sweating, tunnel vision] in Northeastern North America:
1. Clitocybe dealbata AG 745 --
2. Inocybe, all species AG 626ff. --

Mushrooms known to cause a reaction when alcohol has been consumed up to 72 hours after eating the mushroom:
1. Coprinus atramentarius AG 596
2. Clitocybe clavipes AG 745

Mushroom known to cause disorientation, GI symptoms, muscarine-like symptoms:
Amanita muscaria AG 538

Mushrooms known to cause transient hallucinations:
1. Psilocybe caerulipes, and other blue-staining species of Psilocybe AG 719
2. Gymnopilus spectabilis AG 623

Mushrooms known or suspected to cause mild to severe GI distress:
Gilled Mushrooms:
1. Agaricus meleagris AG 507
2. Amanita gemmata (= A. crenulata) AG 537
3. Armillaria mellea AG 736
4. Chlorophyllum molybdites AG 509
5. Entoloma, many species
6. Hebeloma, all species suspected
7. Lactarius, many species
8. Lepiota naucina AG 519
9. Naematoloma (= Hypholoma) fasciculare AG 709
10. Omphalotus olearius AG 787
11. Paxillus involutus AG 671
12. Russula, several species
13. Tricholoma, several species
14. Tricholomopsis platyphylla AG 807

Boletes:
1. Boletus huronensis (in Bessette, North American Boletes)
2. Boletus (= Chalciporus) piperatus AG 571
3. Boletus sensibilis AG 567
4. Boletus, some species with red pore-mouths
5. Suillus luteus (can be laxative) AG 586
6. Tylopilus eximius AG 592

Other Mushrooms:
1. Morels eaten raw AG 326
2. Gomphus floccosus AG 396
3. Ramaria formosa and possibly other coral fungi AG 408
4. Scleroderma citrinum AG 839
5. Calvatia gigantea, occasionally reported. AG 823

black-truffle-tuber-melanosporum.

Mushrooms for Good Health?

Mushrooms for Good Health?
In general, I advise against eating a lot of the cultivated white or "button" mushrooms found on supermarket shelves throughout the United States (portobello and crimini mushrooms are the same species). They are among a number of foods (including celery, peanuts, peanut products,
and salted, pickled, or smoked foods) that contain natural carcinogens. If you do eat these varieties, never eat them raw and cook them thoroughly over high heat; that will break down some of the toxins.
Related Weil Products
Instead of button mushrooms, I recommend seeking out the more exotic varieties, which are becoming increasingly available in the United States. Some are edible mushrooms and can make a delicious addition to your diet, but some are strictly medicinal mushrooms available in dried, liquid extract or in capsule form.

Here's a brief guide to my favorites:

* Shiitake: These meaty and flavorful mushrooms contain a substance called eritadenine, which encourages body tissues to absorb cholesterol and lower the amount circulating in the blood. Dried shiitakes, available at Asian grocery stores, are also effective. Fresh ones are readily available thanks to domestic cultivation. (To prepare, remove stems or slice fresh ones thinly; they are often tough.)
* Cordyceps: A Chinese mushroom used as a tonic and restorative. You can buy whole, dried cordyceps in health food stores and add them to soups and stews, or drink tea made from powdered cordyceps. get cordyceps in liquid or capsule form. * Enoki: Slender white edible mushrooms that need only brief cooking and have a very mild taste. Enoki mushrooms have significant anticancer and immune-enhancing effects.
* Maitake: This delicious Japanese edible mushroom is also called "hen of the woods" because it grows in big clusters that resemble the fluffed tail feathers of a nesting hen. Maitake has anticancer, antiviral, and immune-system enhancing effects and may also help control both high blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
* Reishi: Strictly a medicinal mushroom, not a culinary one, reishi is woody, hard, and bitter. Like maitake and other related mushrooms species, reishi can improve immune function and inhibit the growth of some malignant tumors. It also shows significant anti-inflammatory effects, reduces allergic responsiveness, and protects the liver. You can buy dried, ground mushrooms and use them to make tea if you don't mind the bitterness. Otherwise, buy reishi tablets, liquid extracts or capsules, which are available in health food stores and follow the recommended dosage. Allergies to edible mushrooms are rare, but some people do find them hard to digest. To learn more about the health-promoting effects of mushrooms, check out www.fungi.com, the web site of Fungi Perfecti, an excellent source for information about medicinal and gourmet edible mushrooms, as well as dried mushrooms and extracts.


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EdibLe Mushrooms Gallery

Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulfureus) There are a few things to be aware of when picking this mushroom. Firstly, there's some evidence that if it's growing on either yew or eucalyptus, it might be poisonous. Secondly, you really only want it when it's young and juicy; it gets old and woody later, and it isn't good eating any more. Thirdly, there are some extremely rare examples of children hallucinating after eating this mushroom. So don't feed it to any tiny tots. Other than that, munch away. It's remarkable just how much this mushroom really does taste like chicken, so I recommend making the most of that by adding it to chicken stews and curries. I like to keep some in the freezer, ready to be diced up and marinated in olive oil and herbs, making an ideal barbecue treat for vegetarians."

Fairy Ring Mushroom (Marasmius oreades) "Be careful with this one. Really careful. You could mistake one of the toxic Clitocybe species or it, and that wouldn’t be good. Could be fatal. But once you get the eye for this mushroom, it’s a cracker, it really is. A lot of people write books on wild foods that you can find in immaculate woodlands that you never ever get to. They tell you about chanterelles, ceps, morels and the like. What they don’t tell you about is this little mushroom that forms most of the fairy rings in parks, football pitches, school playing fields, etc. And it has an almondy, mushroomy flavour as good as any other mushroom. It’s not big, so you want to pick plenty for a meal. This isn’t a problem; you might find rings that are ten yards across or more, with hundreds of mushrooms on them. You get them from Spring through till Autumn, but in May they’re at their best because there is less chance of them being full of maggots. As you pick them, pull the stipe (stem) out and look at where it joins the cap; you want there to be no maggot holes there. And best of all, they dry very well. Thread the caps onto cotton and hang them somewhere warm to dry."[/img]

Giant Puffball (Langermannia gigantea) The giant puffball is a mammoth amongst mushrooms. It is a near spherical fungal fruiting body, somewhere between a few inches and a yard or more in diameter. It is attached to the ground by a thin stem, which breaks upon ripening allowing the puffball to dry out and release spores (sometimes for a year or two) as it rolls about in the wind. If you are lucky enough to find a young, fresh specimen (it MUST be white all the way through; as it yellows, eventually turning green and brown, it will make you sick) then you are in for a real treat. Take it home (laughing maniacally as you do so), slice it into half inch steaks, and fry it (battered or covered in egg and breadcrumbs if you like). It’s kind of like a strongly mushroom flavoured marshmallow. Or dice it for stews and soups, slice it up and add some olive oil, put in a pot and bake it... Even stuff it with mince and its own chopped innards before baking (the smell it gives out when you cook it that way is almost overpowering!). Whatever you do with it, it is a fine tasting mushroom. Different guidebooks will give different habitats for the giant puffball, but I personally think that it grows where it likes. I’ve found them on muddy lake banks that are covered in water for two months of most years, I’ve picked it from a pile of waste soil next to a rugby pitch, and I’ve found a ring of a dozen football sized puffballs in a patch of scrubby woodland by a railway track. The only linking thing I can find is that the soil must be relatively undisturbed for a few years. I can’t really offer definitive advice on what habitat it prefers, but I will stick my neck out and say that sooner or later, if you keep your eyes open, you’ll find one. Can’t easily be misidentified, unless you find a football in the woods."

When the pics aren't from Downsizer, it might be worth mentioning where the pics are from or including a link. Always a polite thing to do Or ask for pics from Downsizers of course. Here, for example, is a chanterelle from Wakefield:

Deceivers... (Laccaria laccata) Thats from outside the chemistry department of Cambridge University, right on Lensfield Road... Very pretty but I didn't eat them! October '01. And the similar purple species, the amethyst deceiver, Laccaria amethysta Thats from Thetford forest, same roll of film as the other pic so only more or less the same time as the deceivers. They're both slight little shrooms, only a few of centimeters across and the shape is very variable. But when found in profusion they're really nice and tasty, well worth having.

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 06 10:43 am Post subject: Agrocybe cylindracea "...cream at first, darker brown with age, with persistent ring which soon becomes dusted brown by the spores. Flesh white in the cap and stem, brown in the stem base. Taste nutty, smell of old wine casks. Habitat in tufts wood especially willows and poplars. Season all year round."

More About Mushrooms

More About Mushrooms

What is a mushroom? Mushrooms are actually the fruits of fungus. The fungus itself is simply a net of threadlike fibers, called a mycelium, growing in soil, wood or decaying matter. Mushrooms on a mycelium are like apples on an apple tree.

The function of a mushroom is to produce spores, which are the "seeds" of the fungus. Some kinds of mushrooms produce their spores on gills (the gilled fungi);some in pores (the pore fungi); some on teeth (the tooth fungi); some inside a leathery pouch (the puffballs); some on the inside of shallow cups ( the cup fungi, including the morels); and some simply on the surface of the mushroom (coral fungi and others). The spores form on these various structures, then fall off to blow away on the wind or be carried by animals, water or insects. If a spore lands in a suitable spot, it germinates and grows into a new mycelium.

The mushrooms most people recognize are the gilled fungi. These typical parasol-shaped mushrooms have caps with bladelike gills on the underside and stems with or without rings. The pore fungi are similar in appearance but have a spongy layer of tubes of pores on the underside of the cap instead of gills.

Collecting mushrooms

Mushroom collecting requires only the simplest of equipment: a flat-bottomed basket or box, a roll of waxed paper, a digging tool and a pencil and paper for notes.

Be sure to collect the entire mushroom, including the base. Take only fresh, young specimens that are free of insect damage. Each type of mushroom should be wrapped separately in waxed paper (not plastic wrap, which hastens decay), along with any notes you might want to make about the habitat and appearance of the mushroom. It's a good idea to note where the mushroom is growing (on wood, soil, moss); whether it is single or in clusters' the colors of the caps, gills and stem; and any other distinctive features. The more you can observe about the mushroom in the field, the easier it will be to identify at home.

Making a spore print

Individual spores are too small to be seen with the naked eye, but you can make a spore print that will show the color of the spores in mass. This color is an important identifying characteristic for many mushrooms, especially the gilled fungi.

To make a spore print, cut the stem off the mushroom and place the cap gill-side or pore-side down on a piece of white paper. To best see the spore color, use on sheet of black paper and one of white, taped together side-by-side. Cover with a bowl or jar. If the mushroom is at the right stage-not too young, too old or deteriorated-the spores will slowly collect on the paper. A spore print will be visible in one to 12 hours.

Edible or Poisonous?

Edible or Poisonous?

The first question most people want answered about a mushroom is "Is it poisonous?" followed closely by "Can I eat it?"
The first rule for those who choose to eat wild mushrooms is "When in doubt, throw it out."

The fact is that there are many excellent edible wild mushrooms that almost anyone can learn to identify. There are also deadly poisonous species that every collector should be familiar with.
However, there are no simple rules that can reliably tell you which mushrooms are poisonous and which are edible. The only way to safely collect wild mushrooms is to be familiar with the characteristics of the species you wish to collect. The best way to learn these characteristics is to go collecting with experts who can teach them to you. LAMS hosts several mushroom forays where beginners can start.

Beginners should never rely solely on their own identifications to identify edible mushrooms based on any field guide - especially ones that only provide photographs and brief descriptions. If you have found some mushrooms and wish to get them identified see our contact page. Also check our recommended reading page for various websites, books, and journals that can help you learn to identify mushrooms.

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