Poisonous Fungi

There are three kinds of poisonous fungi: * Ones that will kill you * Ones that will make you seriously ill * Ones that will give you hallucinations Let's start with the ones that can kill you. The most important one on a world-wide basis is the Death Cap, Amanita phalloides, responsible for 90% of the deaths attributable to fungal poisoning in the world (Southcott, 1996; p. 298). It seems to have given all other fungi a bad name. Death from this species is painful and unpleasant. There are no symptoms for the first 12 hours or so, then the victim experiences violent stomach pain and gastroenteritis, followed by vomiting and diarrhoea. Then the effects pass, but only for a couple of days. By that time the toxin has smashed its way through the victim's liver and kidneys, giving A. phalloides an unenviable 50% death rate (Southcott, 1996; p. 300). Should you survive, you are likely to have major kidney and liver damage. "The treatment of choice is often liver transplantation" (David Fischer) If you learn to identify only one fungus in your life (no pun intended), this is the one. There is no magic way to tell if a fungus is poisonous. Not all dangerous fungi taste unpleasant, almost none of them will stain a silver spoon black, only one or two change colour when the flesh is bruised. The only certain way to know if it is poisonous is to identify it. But so little of Australia's mycoflora has been collected and identified that the chances are good that you could easily be the discoverer of an even more deadly mushroom than the Death Cap. Many Australian species look superficially like popular edible European species. This has resulted in more than a few hospital admissions. For many Fungimap volunteers, the situation was beautifully crystallised by our founding father, Dr Tom May, who told us that the only mushrooms he ate came from the market!