Angel of Death.
31st October 2025
We were out walking yesterday looking for birds and possibly some fungi, unfortunately there was no luck whatsoever on the bird front and the fungi count was little better either. However, at the edge of a deciduous wood there was one highlight, a medium sized pure white mushroom that stood out like a sore thumb in the leaf litter.
Pure white should be a warning sign in the mushroom world because it can possibly mean that deadly poisons are present.
On closer examination this particular mushroom exhibited some of the characteristics of the Amanita genus (in particular the Destroying Angel). These are a family of extremely poisonous mushrooms, which include the infamous Death Cap. These names weren’t pulled out of a hat; they were named thus for a reason.
A recent case in the national news involved a woman from Australia who deliberately and fatally poisoned some of her relatives using the Death Cap mushroom added to a Beef Wellington.
Destroying Angel is possibly more dangerous than Death Cap, not in terms of toxicity, but because it can be confused with other small white mushrooms such as young Agaricus Campestris (Field Mushroom) and Agaricus Sylvicola (Wood Mushroom) which can grow as it does on woodland edges.
Distinguishing features of this particular mushroom is the ‘Egg Sack’ at the base of the stipe and the stipe itself which is patterned with varying degrees of striations and also then the remnants of the skirt which attached the cap to the stipe and is still at the top of the stipe.
All these indicators should be a red light to anybody finding this mushroom. I don’t profess to being a fungi expert, in fact quite the opposite, but even to me this would set the alarm bells ringing.
This mushroom contains extremely powerful ‘Amatoxins’ which if ingested, even in small amounts as little as one cap, can have very serious consequences indeed.
Symptoms manifest themselves within five to twelve hours with severe gastric upsets, namely, sickness, diarrhoea and stomach cramps. However, there are a strange set of circumstances attached, because after a few hours these upsets finish and for a day or so a person is relieved, thinking it’s all over and recovery is underway. However, those feelings of recovery are the precursor to the horror show that is about to unfold. This starts with volcanic vomiting, raging diarrhoea, delirium, coma and a protracted death from liver and kidney failure. Immediate medical treatment must be obtained at the first set of symptoms because by the time the secondary and much worse symptoms manifest themselves it may already be too late.
Treatments are also arduous and very challenging and even if survival occurs it may be in the form of a liver transplant, which well documented evidence shows itself can have very serious implications.
This genus of mushrooms is responsible for about fifty percent of all deaths from fungi poisoning in the western world.
So, if you fancy a few mushrooms with your crispy bacon and scrambled egg of a morning, it’s probably best to be on the safe side and go to a supermarket, because picking one of these may result in it being your last breakfast.
Happy Halloween.
A serious caveat to all who seek out fungi in general – If you are not one hundred percent sure of its identity - Don’t Pick It!
Pure white should be a warning sign in the mushroom world because it can possibly mean that deadly poisons are present.
On closer examination this particular mushroom exhibited some of the characteristics of the Amanita genus (in particular the Destroying Angel). These are a family of extremely poisonous mushrooms, which include the infamous Death Cap. These names weren’t pulled out of a hat; they were named thus for a reason.
A recent case in the national news involved a woman from Australia who deliberately and fatally poisoned some of her relatives using the Death Cap mushroom added to a Beef Wellington.
Destroying Angel is possibly more dangerous than Death Cap, not in terms of toxicity, but because it can be confused with other small white mushrooms such as young Agaricus Campestris (Field Mushroom) and Agaricus Sylvicola (Wood Mushroom) which can grow as it does on woodland edges.
Distinguishing features of this particular mushroom is the ‘Egg Sack’ at the base of the stipe and the stipe itself which is patterned with varying degrees of striations and also then the remnants of the skirt which attached the cap to the stipe and is still at the top of the stipe.
All these indicators should be a red light to anybody finding this mushroom. I don’t profess to being a fungi expert, in fact quite the opposite, but even to me this would set the alarm bells ringing.
This mushroom contains extremely powerful ‘Amatoxins’ which if ingested, even in small amounts as little as one cap, can have very serious consequences indeed.
Symptoms manifest themselves within five to twelve hours with severe gastric upsets, namely, sickness, diarrhoea and stomach cramps. However, there are a strange set of circumstances attached, because after a few hours these upsets finish and for a day or so a person is relieved, thinking it’s all over and recovery is underway. However, those feelings of recovery are the precursor to the horror show that is about to unfold. This starts with volcanic vomiting, raging diarrhoea, delirium, coma and a protracted death from liver and kidney failure. Immediate medical treatment must be obtained at the first set of symptoms because by the time the secondary and much worse symptoms manifest themselves it may already be too late.
Treatments are also arduous and very challenging and even if survival occurs it may be in the form of a liver transplant, which well documented evidence shows itself can have very serious implications.
This genus of mushrooms is responsible for about fifty percent of all deaths from fungi poisoning in the western world.
So, if you fancy a few mushrooms with your crispy bacon and scrambled egg of a morning, it’s probably best to be on the safe side and go to a supermarket, because picking one of these may result in it being your last breakfast.
Happy Halloween.
A serious caveat to all who seek out fungi in general – If you are not one hundred percent sure of its identity - Don’t Pick It!