This is the season for mushrooms, but there’s one particular menace this autumn: the death cap mushroom. Amanita phalloides is Britain’s deadliest mushroom and it’s been reported in unusually large numbers in the run of mild, damp weather.
It’s been estimated that as little as half a death cap mushroom is enough to kill an adult and, worldwide, this species has caused more deaths than any other mushroom. Worse still, death caps have been reported to taste quite pleasant, and symptoms of poisoning may not appear for up to 24 hours after they have been eaten.
To make life even more difficult, it’s easy to mistake the death cap for some edible mushrooms. They can be distinguished by a pale green cap, a bulbous ring at the bottom of the stalk and a ring-like collar at the top. But the cap can be white like an edible field mushroom, and the young unopened cap conceals its telltale white gills – a field mushroom has darker gills – and can also be mistaken for an edible young puffball.
The stunning fly agaric is related to death cap, but is not as poisonous. This is the quintessential fairy toadstool beloved of gnomes and fairies, with a brilliant scarlet cap and white spots, and may have been the inspiration for Father Christmas’s red and white cloak and hat. Extremely young examples of this mushroom growing up from the soil appear as small white puffballs – another reason not to pick early-stage mushrooms.
Both these fungi are actually vital for the life of trees. Their underground fungal mycorrhizal filaments feed the roots of trees with much needed nutrients.
