Wild Edibles - Mushroom Warning!

Warning! Many wild mushrooms are poisonous. Some, like the Destroying Angel, are deadly. Never eat any wild mushroom without first properly identifying it. There are many good field guides available, but some of these may have errors, so it is best to cross check or even triple check with different guides. Also, some edible mushrooms have deadly poisonous twins. Always spore print for accurate identification. Under no circumstances should you rely solely on an internet source for identification of any edible mushroom. There are many errors and unscrupulous purveyors of false information on the web. Do not assume that if a mushroom shows signs of having been browsed or eaten by wildlife that humans can do the same. Deer are able to eat the Fly Agaric mushroom, Amanita muscaria, without harm, but to people this mushroom is extremely toxic. Never eat any mushroom found growing on another mushroom or fungi. It may acquire some of the properties of a potentially poisonous host. Be sure to cook any and all edible mushrooms. The most knowlegeable mushroom experts that I know even cook the mushrooms they buy in the grocery store! Finally, do not "sample" any mushroom raw, and don't make the mistake of assuming that edible mushrooms taste good and poisonous ones taste bad. Amanita virosa, the Destroying Angle, is one of the tastiest mushrooms, but ingesting it almost always ends in death.

Any mushroom growing on another mushroom or fungi should not be eaten. These mini-puffballs would have been tasty if they weren't gowing on this bracket!

Puffballs are edible as long as the inside still looks like whitebread as in this photo, but do not eat once they start to darken.

The beautiful, poisonous mushroom above is the Fly Agaric, so called because it can be used to kill houseflies.

These mushrooms, growing at the base of a white pine tree, could be Kuerhneromyces mutabilis, which is edible, or they could be Galerina autumnalis, which is as deadly as the Destroying Angel. Only proper identification and spore printing will reveal which is which.

Another photo of the mushrooms at left showing evidence of browsing, but this does not indicate edibility. The animal that sampled these mushrooms may have become ill or died as a result.

Beware! The two white mushrooms to the left are not healthy and do not look at all like any fieldguide photo of them. These are the deadly Amanita virosa, or Destroying Angel. One taste of these mushrooms would make a person think they could be eaten, but if they were, the end result, a few agonizing days later, would be death.

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