How To Identify Poisonous Mushrooms

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Summer is the time for rest, vacations, forest walks. Mushroom picking has long been considered a traditional type of recreation for the townspeople. The advantages of "quiet hunting" have been known for a long time, tens of thousands of Petersburgers every weekend head to the forest, armed with baskets and penknives. And the sad statistics - the number of mushroom poisonings - sound especially alarming every year. So what are the reliable ways to distinguish an edible mushroom from a poisonous one?

The answer will be categorical: there is only one really reliable way - knowledge. But there are just a lot of misconceptions on this score. This is a supposedly blackening silver spoon, and a blue onion, and an unpleasant bitter taste. Although it is clear that the spoon darkens from sulfur compounds, the bulb also turns blue for good reasons, and the most poisonous mushroom on the planet, the pale toadstool (for an adult to die, it is enough to eat half of the cap) has a neutral sweetish taste. These are no longer even delusions, but a whole mythology that poses a significant danger to those who believe in it. Let's go in order.

We don't have a lot of deadly poisonous mushrooms. The largest of these is the pale grebe (Amanita phalloides) - a mushroom whose appearance should be remembered very well. The cap of an adult mushroom with a diameter of up to ten centimeters is painted greenish, but there are also almost white specimens, the mushroom as a whole is quite changeable. Of the obligatory signs: a filmy ring on the leg, the remains of a common bedspread on the ground, a pure white color of the plates. And in general - be more attentive to all mushrooms of white and green color.

It is the toadstool poisoning that is the cause of most of the "mushroom" deaths in Russia. For several years now, the Voronezh region has been confidently leading in this sad statistics, where mainly visitors from the Caucasus and Central Asia are poisoned. Some consolation for our readers will be that for the Leningrad region the pale grebe is a significant rarity, for many years of observation I have not come across it even once.

But we have plenty of fly agarics. Beautiful mushrooms of spectacular colors are also dangerous to humans. First of all, it is worth remembering that fly agarics (Amanita) are a genus that includes tens and hundreds of species of completely different "appearance".

The most famous among them is the red fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), the type of which is familiar to everyone from childhood. When eaten, it leads to poisoning, but is usually not fatal. The action of the alkaloids contained in the fly agaric resembles intoxication; a significant dose can lead to much more sad consequences.

The panther fly agaric (Amanita pantherina) is also beautiful, with a wide brown-brown cap.

But the porphyry fly agaric (Amanita porphiria) is much smaller, but it also causes poisoning when eaten.

We have only one edible fly agaric, this is pink fly agaric (Amanita rubescens), it has an unusual sweet taste of pulp, which not everyone likes. A characteristic feature of the mushroom is the flesh turning pink at cut and break.

In the presence of many tasty and guaranteed edible mushrooms in our forests, it is hardly reasonable to fill baskets with fly agarics, even pink ones. In addition, skills and experience are required to confidently identify fly agarics, and a mistake in this case can be expensive.

Other poisonous mushrooms are also found in our area, but it saves that it is almost impossible to confuse them with edible ones, if you have at least a minimum of observation. One conclusion can be drawn: never take a mushroom that is unfamiliar to you. In case of the slightest doubt, pass by, this is not the case to take risks.

In recent years, doctors have observed a surge in mushroom poisoning of a special kind, the victims of which are mainly young people. These are hallucinogenic mushroom poisonings. The fact is that some mushrooms, when consumed, cause characteristic poisoning, which causes disturbances in the functioning of the brain. You want to be a fool, but to carefully read the description of the appearance of the mushroom, read the literature, look at the pictures - there is no time or desire for this. And dozens of species of mushrooms, including many poisonous ones, fall into the stomachs of seekers of dubious adventures.

And if the definition is correct, there is nothing to rejoice about - in the most popular psychotropic mushrooms of the genus Psilocybe, substances have recently been found that lead to irreversible consequences in the cerebral cortex. Do you need it?

Obviously, you shouldn't put any nasty stuff in your mouth, it is better to drink decent vodka in good company. At least there will be less work for doctors.

As for the confident determination of the mushrooms of our latitudes, here you can advise several relatively reliable methods. First of all, look at the underside of the cap, where the so-called hymenophore is located - the spore-bearing layer. The hymenophore of cap mushrooms is of several types: in the form of folds, plates, spines, tubes. It is the tubes that are on the underside of the cap of the most delicious and nutritious mushrooms - white, boletus, boletus, butterdish. Inedible mushrooms among tubulars are extremely rare, and, as a rule, have a bitter taste. Thus, it is unlikely that mushrooms of this type will be poisoned.

It is also relatively safe to pick mushrooms that grow on wood. Poisonous among them can also be caught by you, but they all have a bitter taste or an unpleasant odor. So picking up honey agaric is quite a safe activity. However, I will emphasize again: all advice should be treated with a certain amount of caution, and the only reliable way to distinguish an edible mushroom from a poisonous one is knowledge.

For interested readers, I can recommend such authors as M. N. Sergeeva, L. V. Garibova, G. I. Serzhanina, Yu. G. Semyonov. Modern "mushroom" publications, as a rule, are adequately illustrated, contain accurate and detailed descriptions of the species. Decent foreign literature also comes across. In the virtual space, mushroom pickers will also find a lot of interesting things for themselves.