Destroying Angel
Amanita virosa · Amanitaceae
Pure white, elegant and lethal. The one to check for whenever you pick a white mushroom.
Deadly poisonous. DEADLY. The same amatoxins as the Death Cap, with the same delayed onset and liver failure. Field mushrooms have PINK to BROWN gills and no volva.
Read the full foraging safety guidance.
Season
July to October
Where it grows
- Birch
- Broadleaf woodland
- Acid soil
Identification
- Cap
- 5-12cm, pure white, often with a slightly conical or lopsided shape, silky and sticky when wet.
- Gills / pores
- Free, WHITE, crowded.
- Stem
- White, shaggy and fibrous, with a ragged ring and a large white sac-like VOLVA at the base.
- Flesh
- White.
- Spore print
- White.
- Smell & taste
- Sickly and unpleasant when old.
Lookalikes
Young field and horse mushrooms, and button-stage puffballs. The gills give it away: white gills at all ages means stop.
In the kitchen
Never eat. Teach anyone who forages with you to recognise it.
Also deadly
Death Cap
Amanita phalloides
Responsible for the great majority of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide. Learn this one before anything else.
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.