Photoclubalpha

Tasted fine (small quantity, cooked), passed the identification tests to be edible parasol or shaggy parasol mushrooms (macrolepiota varities). But no matter where I look, on line or in guides, the one thing I never see is such an amazingly well-defined scale structure on the cap. No staining, detached gills, 12cm high 14-17cm diameter, free (movable) single ring on stem. Either I've got the best examples and the best photos of something, or we've eaten something unknown...

You're brave, DK.

Knock-knock... Are you still alive?

Wow! David I’m impressed with your poisonous mushroom identification system….eat it and see.
I’ll assume you are still with us.
According too what I could find out (in general) the poisonous ones have a stem that gets larger towards the ground, and the gills underneath should be pink when young and brownish when older, do not eat any mushie that has white gills.
Greg

I never saw one of that Kind in Quebec, Canada Boreal region. Usually by cooking you can remove some poison effect ... , but White one in the forest are most of the time Dangerous. Unfortunately all my encyclopedias are at my chalet in the north. (I never found the internet good to identify Mushroom ... I don't know why ...)

I don't know what you have in mind ... or too excited ... but even after year of reading and searching of Mushroom, I have never though of doing what you have done. I suggest you go and buy an lottery ticket that day . (Important message for new reader on the forum wanting to to the same ...)

The good thing in the story, that you can bring the picture with you at the anti-poison facility to help them identify if something turn bad .

Regards,

Frank

David,
I think this page of Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_parasol is close to the Mushroom you found 'Chlorophyllum rhacodes' and seems an ok one, but there are a few of very similar appearance and one of them is not good to eat at all 'Chlorophyllum molybdites' for example.
Greg

It looks like you have a nice example of Macrolepiota rhacodes. Check here: http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/gallery/ ... result.asp.

Dusty

<Muffled> "I'm in the bathroom!"

Dr. Harout wrote:Knock-knock... Are you still alive?

Turns out in fact we have an example of Leucoagaricus nympharum, or puelloides, previous classed with Macrolepiota species (parasol mushrooms) but actually now moved to a different class. The key indicators for edibility still agree and it's simply described as 'edible' in European countries where it is usually found - Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic etc.

But my contact who identified it says it can kick back, which indeed it did for Shirley but not for me - like the Shaggy Parasol (which it is not) it can provoke allergic and stomach reactions in some indivuals, and Shirley returned it rapidly enough while also reporting shortness of breath. But nothing worse.

It's not a big risk if you can positively identify the species as NOT being one of the seriously or deadly poisonous ones, and in this case I was able to do that (and one contact in France classed it as something regularly collected alongside other similar ones, to eat). I would never risk eating even the smallest amount of a mushroom which could be one of the known poisonous ones.

Also, with a mushroom as beautiful and interesting looking as this one, you can be pretty sure that if it was poisonous it would be photographed and listed in every book on mushrooms the same way fly agaric always is. No reference for poisonous species includes anything looking like this.

Again, no references to edible species or even interesting mushrooms seem to include it - it's so rare that the regional mushroom expert has added our find as only the second time it's been recorded in the Scottish Borders. We may try it again if new small fresh ones appear, but I'm more inclined to leave them (these were at least old enough to cast their spores). It's a protected habitat species in some areas.

David

We definitely need a food and drink(s) forum

Keep an eye on your wife for yellowing or jaundice, DK. And for goodness sake, don't eat any more taradiddling mushrooms that you can't identify!

A good guide to what mushrooms you can safely eat is: If it's not on sale in Sainsburys, then don't!

Could have been the "False Death Cap", I think with Fly Agaric you would perhaps be sick, see a few nice faries, but with the real Death Cap it would be lights out unless you got to a hospital pretty quick, although it looks different to the picture above. For my money, I'd rather take pictures of it and leave it alone, pop into Sainsbury's and pay silly money for a sweaty pack

Have thought of going on a mushroom field trip course as these are fascinating fruits in all sorts of amazing colours.

Adam

I don't want to pass on why I knew it was not going to be poisonous, because it could be misunderstood - suffice it to say that this mushroom has a feature which no poisonous agaric-group mushrooms have, and my identification was only 'wrong' by being out of date, meaning I was looking for information under a classification this used to belong to. So I had the right information about edibility, and the wrong name.

Now I have both, and would be 100% sure of identifying the same species again, I'd certainly try eating it a bit younger and smaller.

David

David, hear this:
- The coroner to the son-in-law: how did she die?
- son-in-law: she ate non-edible mushrooms
- coroner: then why her face is so damaged?
- son-in-law: she was refusing to eat...