amanita

Fruiting bodies of the death cap in English woodland. The death cap, which can quite easily be mistaken for the edible common field mushroom, is particularly dangerous because there is no known antidote. It takes only 20 gm/0.7 oz of fresh fungus to kill an adult human being, death resulting from acute liver failure.

Fly agaric toadstool Amanita muscaria. This toadstool contains toxins and is related to the fatally poisonous death cap Amanita phalloides.

Any of a group of fungi (see fungus) distinguished by a ring (or volva) around the base of the stalk, warty patches on the cap, and the clear white colour of the gills. Many of the species are brightly coloured and highly poisonous. (Genus Amanita, family Agaricaceae.)

The fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) is a dangerous, poisonous mushroom with a white-spotted red cap, which grows under birch or pine trees. It is the ‘magic mushroom’ used in religious ritual by early peoples of Siberia, Europe, and India. The buff-coloured death cap (A. phalloides) is deadly. Edible species include the false death cap (A. citrina) and the blusher (A. rubescens). A. pantherina is not edible, causing very unpleasant though nonfatal poisoning; it is often confused with stout agaric (A. spissa), which is edible.