Deadly Webcap
Cortinarius rubellus · Cortinariaceae
A modest orange-brown mushroom whose poison destroys the kidneys weeks after the meal.
Deadly poisonous. DEADLY. Orellanine causes kidney failure 2-21 days after eating, long after anyone connects it with the meal. This is the species that poisoned the Nicholas Evans party in 2008.
Read the full foraging safety guidance.
Season
August to November
Where it grows
- Conifer woodland
- Spruce
- Mossy acid ground
Identification
- Cap
- 3-8cm, tawny to foxy orange-brown, dry, felty, with a distinct pointed umbo.
- Gills / pores
- Widely spaced, rusty ochre, darkening with spores.
- Stem
- Tapering, paler, with yellowish bands and remains of a cobwebby veil.
- Flesh
- Pale orange-brown.
- Spore print
- RUSTY BROWN.
- Smell & taste
- Faintly of radish.
Lookalikes
Chanterelles (which have ridges and no true gills) and edible brown-gilled species. Any cobwebby veil plus rusty spores means walk away.
In the kitchen
Never eat. Treat all Cortinarius species as off limits.
Also deadly
Death Cap
Amanita phalloides
Responsible for the great majority of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide. Learn this one before anything else.
Destroying Angel
Amanita virosa
Pure white, elegant and lethal. The one to check for whenever you pick a white mushroom.
Funeral Bell
Galerina marginata
A small brown mushroom on dead wood carrying the same toxins as the Death Cap.