Posted on 02/07/2026 7:48:00 AM PST by BenLurkin
The California Department of Public Health is urging people to avoid mushroom foraging altogether this year because death cap mushrooms are easily confused with safe, edible varieties.
Since Nov. 18 there have been more than three dozen cases of death cap poisonings reported, including the four deaths and three liver transplants, according to the health department. Many who sought medical attention suffered from rapidly evolving acute liver injury and liver failure. Several patients required admission to an intensive care unit. They have ranged in age from 19 months to 67 years old.
The death cap is one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world and is part of a small group of mushrooms containing amatoxins, which are highly potent compounds causing 90% of fatal mushroom poisonings globally. They are in city parks and in forests, often under oak trees.
In a typical year there are between two and five death cap poisonings, said Dr. Craig Smollin, medical director for the San Francisco Division of the California Poison Control System.
“The main thing this year is just the magnitude, the number of people ingesting this mushroom,” Smollin said. “Having almost 40 is very unusual.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Calling it now, some “expert” is going to opine that because they spread after the rains, the cause is clearly climate change.
Back in the 80s I had buddies that would go out and forage for mushrooms to get high on......I’m no expert but even I knew how dangerous that was.......that no one ever got sick or worse was a miracle.
If only those predictions a few years ago that California was in a 10,000 year drought and the rains would never again come to California, then nobody would have died from Death Caps.
“Missed it by that much, Chief!”
There’s a morel to this story.
🤣
No, they aren't.
But people be stupid.
And way to trusting of what they see on the interwebs.
If you are going to mushroom, and it is a fun thing to do, take a local class.
Never fear. they’ll still vote for the Democrats in the next 127 Presidential elections! So they’re not really gone.
Mushrooms are pretty cheap in the stores.? Hello.
It’s a damned Amanita!
Anyone who can’t differentially identify any species from an Amanita has no business eating anything not wrapped in plastic on a bed of styrofoam.
Morel of the story?
Don’t be too much of a fun-gi.
A couple of years ago I found a 9 inch wide Amanita muscaria all by itself on a Pine Knoll near my house. Same family as the death angel mentioned here and much written about it under the name of the Sacred mushroom.
Most picture it as a bright red cap with white warts on it. The one I saw was more deep red almost purplish.
Needless to say I passed going on the hallucinogenic adventure it was offering to me.
First read about it in what appeared as a well researched book called “The Sacred mushroom and the cross” which attempted to tie it to the roots of Christian mysticism.
I’ve only seen one other hiking up by Lake Tahoe years ago
Every wild mushroom you eat is a “You Bet Your Life” proposition.
Have I EVER eaten a mushroom I was 99.99% sure of?
Hell no!
“There’s a morel to this story.”
Lol
/thread
Oh Gus, the gardener’s gone now
And you went with him too
The fungus there, reminds me of
The fun Gus is having with you
Now the rockery’s a mockery, with weeds it’s overgrown
The fuchsia’s gone, I couldn’t face the fuchsia all alone
And my tears fell like raindrops from the sky above
And poisoned all the flowers in my Garden of Love
-Benny Hill
This was in my neighbor's yard:
We'd never seen this variety - looked it up - it's a morel - "most" of which are edible. Told the neighbor NOT to eat it, b/c you never know and we've heard these reports about people eating the death cap...with dire consequences.
I can confirm that those three are morels, a high class edible.
But the next one you find could look a lot alike and be a “false morel”’that may give you stomach upset.
So don’t try any until you absolutely know your differential identifications.
Even so, some particular people get gastric upset from mushrooms that are considered highly edible. And, freshness matters, as older specimens become corrupt like rotted veges.
So hook up with a Mycology group, learn, and become confident on your own.
Shrooming is a you bet your life proposition.
So, my wife got a few books from the library, and if you are picking your own mushrooms, it sounds to me like you have to 95% of the time have to do what is called a "spore print" of that mushroom you foraged, in which you take a mushroom you picked and lay it gill-down on a piece of paper that is black on one side, white on the other, and often has a hole in the center to put the stalk through.
Leave it overnight or for a day or two, and the spores fall onto the paper. You then have to consult a book that has pictures of mushrooms, and it tells you what the spore print looks like.
Sure, there are some mushrooms that are easily identifiable and you might not need a spore print.
But there are a lot that look nearly the same, one is edible, and the other is poisonous, and the spore print is how you differentiate it.
And dying by poison mushroom sounds horrific. There was one that had a note that if you ate it, you were likely going to need a liver transplant...if you lived. Ugh.
I prefer Morels...:)
I got a bag of them dried, reconstituted them overnight by soaking in water, and sautéed them in olive oil, butter, and garlic with venison tenderloins sliced into medallions and glazed with Grand Marnier.
I don't think we are going to continue growing them, as our small house precludes the allocation of space for them, but...now we know how it can be done!
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