It might be worthwhile to invest in a book. Especially if the guy on the cover looks like he’s been sampling some of the more … pharmacological things that grow their own caps.
(Of course, a book is no substitute for a real expert. DO NOT TRUST A CRAZED BAND GEEK WITH YOUR LIFE. Especially someone in the brass section.)
The Amanita group contains by far the worst of all mushrooms. Pretty much the first thing you should learn is how to recognize one. It’s beyond astonishing that a guy could spend many years collecting and eating various fungi without being aware of this.
It should be noted that some Amanita species are choice edibles. But because of their nasty cousins, they are strictly for experts only. I probably know enough to tell them apart, but would not consider eating any Amanita.
Ditto. I can tell Coccolis/Coccoras ( Amanita lanei ) from deathcaps ( Amanita phalloides ) by sight with moderate confidence and by microscope with very high confidence. But I still won’t eat them. Only need to miss the mark once.
Local chapters of the North American Mycological Society, as in my area’s very active Bay Area Mycological Society, are an excellent resource for at least getting steered towards someone who can reliably ID mushrooms for you.
Spot on. This is the key to amateur fungus picking - clue yourself up as much as possible, and avoid anything where a very high degree of certainty is not guaranteed.
And don’t think your expertise in location X applies to location Y. My boss said that many of the poisoning cases he got involved people from Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia who were quite skilled at picking mushrooms at home - and who were not aware that in North America some variety of amanita looks exactly like an edible mushroom in the old country.
True - there was an incident involving two Asian women and Deathcaps near me last year - one of the women died, not sure if the other one scraped through - the news didn’t follow up.
There’s a mycologist in the office next to mine. He says often immigrants come to America, see a mushroom that looks similar to one in their native country, eat it, and die.
I’ve read in survival handbooks to never eat any mushroom unless you are an expert.
