Fungi Friday - Giant Poisonous Mushrooms

Here are some huge mushrooms for this #fungifriday While on a walk with my daughter we found a half fairy ring of giant mushrooms.

These things had caps the size of pancakes and an interesting cracked brown scaling on the cap. Many would confuse it with Macrolepiota procera a nice edible parasol mushroom as it kind of has similar size/features.

But around here you have to check the gill/spore color. I flipped one over and noticed a greenish hue to the gills.

My phone couldn't quite capture the green color but to the naked eye it is a grayish green color. This confirms my suspicions of this being the green vomiter sometimes called the false parasol with a Latin name of Chlorophyllum molybdites. This one poisons quite a few people each year but if you compare the cap pattern and gill color to Macrolepiota it is easy to see the difference. So avoid getting your stomach pumped and violent vomiting by checking the gill color first.

Next up is what appears to be horse mushrooms pinning.

These things look exactly like Agaricus arvensis the nice choice edible horse mushroom.

They even have the old upturned cap a feature of horse mushrooms.

older specimens even end up getting the nice dark brown almost black gills just like horse mushrooms.

This would be a perfect age to harvest them right before the veil has peeled off before revealing the gills.

The gill color even checks out being pinkish when young, people also mistake these with meadow mushrooms Agaricus campestris but those usually are way larger.

But there is a poisonous mushroom feature you should always check for. If you cut or scratch the mushroom flesh you need to check for yellow staining. I pinched the stem a bit and noticed it bruise yellow within a few seconds... This means it is a poisonous yellow bruiser aka Agaricus xanthodermus. If you want to avoid nausea, severe stomach cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea be sure to check your mushrooms for yellow bruising lol. This one gets more people than the green vomiter as it looks just like a meadow or horse mushroom. Fortunately there is the yellow staining that will save your stomach from disaster.

That's all for now, thanks for looking and keep an eye out for green and yellow features.