Death Cap
Amanita phalloides · Amanitaceae
Responsible for the great majority of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide. Learn this one before anything else.
Deadly poisonous. DEADLY. Half a cap can kill an adult. Symptoms begin 6-24 hours later, appear to improve, then liver failure follows. Always dig up the base of any white-gilled mushroom to look for a volva.
Read the full foraging safety guidance.
Season
August to November
Where it grows
- Oak
- Beech
- Broadleaf woodland
Identification
- Cap
- 5-15cm, greenish-olive to yellowish with faint radiating fibres, smooth, sometimes almost white.
- Gills / pores
- Free, WHITE, crowded, staying white.
- Stem
- White, often with faint zigzag banding, a floppy skirt-like ring, and a bag-like white VOLVA at the swollen base, usually buried.
- Flesh
- White.
- Spore print
- White.
- Smell & taste
- Sickly sweet, honeyed when old.
Lookalikes
Young specimens resemble puffballs and edible Agaricus mushrooms. Green-capped Russulas lack a ring and a volva.
In the kitchen
Never eat. Wash your hands after handling and keep it out of your foraging basket.
Also deadly
Destroying Angel
Amanita virosa
Pure white, elegant and lethal. The one to check for whenever you pick a white mushroom.
Deadly Webcap
Cortinarius rubellus
A modest orange-brown mushroom whose poison destroys the kidneys weeks after the meal.
Funeral Bell
Galerina marginata
A small brown mushroom on dead wood carrying the same toxins as the Death Cap.