[ahistory]

About a week ago my neighbor, who I have never spoken to about mushrooms before, found some firm white buttons in her yard. She took them inside and googled "white mushroom." Since they looked a lot like the photos she saw, she figured they were ok to eat. And so she had two nice ones with her salad about the same size as the ones below.
About 4 hours later the symptoms hit which included very violent gastrointestinal distress. She eventually called the paramedics and once she had everything out of her stomach, she recovered fine.
From her symptoms and her own description of the mushrooms, I was thinking Chlorophyllum molybdites. I have seen these growing in her yard before though not where she said she found them. However, this morning she came over with more she had found and now that I see them in the flesh, I am thinking they are one of the poisonous agaricus. I have very little experience with IDing agaricus especially at this stage of development, so I thought I would ask you guys. Also, I set them up under glass with wet paper towels to see if I can get them to open up, so I hope to have more pictures later. Oh and since I wanted these to open I did not test them to see if they bruised yellow or had that phenolic smell when you crush the bottom of the stem. I will do that after I give em a chance to show their gills. Thanks for the help.

[Dufferin Shroomer]

It is hard to tell from the photos, but are we looking at a veiled mushroom here? The one on the left in the 1st pic looks veiled but I am not so sure about the one on the right. If that isnt a veil then of course you can rule out agaricus etc. To me it appears that the area of attachment to the stem is quite loose, sort of like it wants to produce a veil that will slide up and down the stalk. My first thought was maybe leucoagaricus naucina but the ones I find tend to be pristine white and more round rather than the almost cylinder shape I see in the pics. The L. agaricus does show a fattening at the base of the stem though. Your specimens have quite a substantial stalk and a substantial bulge at the base of the stem. If it was me I would be peeking at gill color on one of the specimens

[Roosevelt]

It does appear to have a ring that will slide up and down the stem. It appears as though it has some brownish staining too. Based on that,I don't believe it is one of the yellow staining agarics, rather, as Duff suggested or yourself, Green spored lepiota or possibly L. naucina. It's definitely in the lepiota family, not agaricus.

[Feral Boy]

Roosevelt, on 23 July 2010 - 03:08 PM, said:

It does appear to have a ring that will slide up and down the stem. It appears as though it has some brownish staining too. Based on that,I don't believe it is one of the yellow staining agarics, rather, as Duff suggested or yourself, Green spored lepiota or possibly L. naucina. It's definitely in the lepiota family, not agaricus.

I'd agree, C. molybdites. It has a kind of "bass drumstick" shape when young like these:

http://www.herbarium...8%2027%2007.jpg

If you left any to grow, you can try for a spore print later.

[Feral Boy]

Feral Boy, on 23 July 2010 - 04:39 PM, said:

Roosevelt, on 23 July 2010 - 03:08 PM, said:

It does appear to have a ring that will slide up and down the stem. It appears as though it has some brownish staining too. Based on that,I don't believe it is one of the yellow staining agarics, rather, as Duff suggested or yourself, Green spored lepiota or possibly L. naucina. It's definitely in the lepiota family, not agaricus.

I'd agree, C. molybdites. It has a kind of "bass drumstick" shape when young like these:

http://www.herbarium...8%2027%2007.jpg

If you left any to grow, you can try for a spore print later.

By the way, make sure they know there's at least one white mushroom that can KILL them
if they're not completely sure of what they have.

[ahistory]

Thanks everyone. Sounds like I should have stuck with my first suspicion. I have them under glass and they seem to be starting to open up. I'll try and post some more photos tomorrow.
And yes, when I finally caught up with her about 36 hours after the event, I was sure to tell her about the other tall white mushrooms and how if she would have eaten one of those, she would just now be going to the hospital and quite possibly too late. The funny thing is she is a nurse, so she knew about how some mushrooms can cause organ failure, but I guess she didn't think of that when she was hungry.
Just goes to show you how important it is to get the word out about the deadly mushrooms in the area. I'm just glad she got lucky and only got a poisonous and not deadly one. You're only one spoonful away.

[Evan]

Wow!! I'm glad to hear that she is OK. I guess there is a reason I only eat certain mushrooms. I never take any chances. If don't know the species enough to be 100% if they are edible, I stay away. I only eat shrooms that have no poisonous look-alikes. This sounds like a chance to educate your neighbor on the edible varieties that grow in your area. Just don't give away your hot spots and tell her to learn her mushrooms before she decides to take a bite.

[Ganoderma]

Those are not Chlorophyllum molybdites.

[ahistory]

Well, I looked at them this morning and unfortunately some other fungus or mold attacked them last night and took them out before they could open fully.

I still am up in the air. The bruising doesn't really match c. molybdites, but then several guides say that is variable. Though several other things don't add up for c. molybdites either. One part of a button wasn't moldy, so I cut it in half. There was an in-rolled veil tucked in there. As Roosevelt suggested, I do think it is one that would leave a ring that would move up and down the stalk. They were however found growing in grass (a compacted lawn) and it had been very hot (above 95) for at least a week before they showed up. And a known green spored fairy ring that I have seen before finally made it appearance and opened up this morning in a another neighbors yard.

The gills at this early stage were a very light grayish brown. I took a section of gills to see if I could get a spore print and it quickly left a light chocolate to tan print.

There was no yellow staining or bruising. In fact, all of the mushroom stem, cap, gills, bruised slowly brown. I could detect no phenolic odor at all. The entire mushroom including the base just smelled a lot like your standard button mushroom.

[Roosevelt]

I'm leaning toward some other lepiota-like mushroom other than the green spored. I've only found the green spored once, but even the buttons had a more shaggy appearance. I don't know off hand the characterisitcs of L. naucina, and have never ID'd one 100%.

If it turns out to be an Agaricus spp. I'm going to be eating my words. I don't think there are any lepiota-like species that have a brown or tan sporeprint and gills?

Are you sure that was the color of the print or possibly some of the brown staining leaching off? I've had that happen with other mushrooms, boletes, and it thru off the print color.

[Dufferin Shroomer]

If the gills have color you can rule out Leucoagaricus. Attaching a neat shot of a L. naucina that shows the inner workings of a button. I have tried this with other veiled button usually with decent results but maybe not quite so perfect as this one. I just dig a thumbnail under the bottom of the cap and quickly rip it back. With luck a nice chunk of cap comes away cleanly and you can examine both gill color and the way they attach. At any rate L. naucina (it is named something else now I think) is white throughout.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Ganoderma]

It sounds like your neighbor may have had an adverse reaction, but was not clear-cut symptoms of being "poisoned". IF that was the case, she lucked out.

The specie Chlorophyllum molybdites is a toxic mushroom. C. molybdites has the potential for being "deadly-poisonous" with dogs, and cats. It also seems a possibility to be deadly if a human subject is sick, or elderly.

Did your neighbor consume the ones in question raw (?,) you mentioned with a salad... either way, she ate something and 'shouldn't have. I'd be interested if her discomfort included delusions, or hallucinogenic response. A lot of cases of mushroom poisoning often include the symptom of hallucinations, at one level or another.

A dangerous note about C. molybdites is that they are rendered edible if first par-boiled and then decanted. I'm uncertain which mycologist(s) to thank for that contribution, maybe was the late Dr. W. A. Murrill, who died from reoccuring kidney infections.

Add: reishi is the #1 natural antidote for treatment and prevention of mushroom poisonings.

This post has been edited by Ganoderma: 25 July 2010 - 12:55 PM
Reason for edit: added note about antidote

[ahistory]

I do think that she ate them raw, so i was considering a reaction like that, but she said she had gotten food poisoning before and this was so much worse than anything like that. She described what I think Kuo called human faucet syndrome. Basically leaking out both ends uncontrollably for 6 hours. That sounds like your average case of chlorophyllum molybdites poisoning from the accounts I have read.

And I have now confirmed the ID of the mushroom. The kids and I headed over to my neighbor's yard to swim and I took a quick look at where she said she found these and lo and behold, she had missed one and it had blossomed out to its fullest. Definitely a green-spored lepiota.

You can see a nice grayish green tinge to the gills here.


Here is a shot of the top.


And even though I told my son, Fox, that it was poisonous. He had never seen a mushroom this size before and could not contain his excitement.


Thanks again everyone for your help. Just glad it was only this and not something much worse.

[Ganoderma]

Good work on the ID. Wow, goes to show mushrooms are tricky to ID, because the button ones do not look like molybdites I had seen. Actually the same sort of thing happened when I saw other Green Gilled Lepiota pics from Missouri, they look a bit less familar then ones I recognize in Florida. The ones in your top pics have characteristics that do not match up in my eyes. Either way, yea certainly get the word on the streets people not to eat those!

[Ganoderma]

Ah, I am at home now and looking at a field guide. I have been typing and viewing the forums using a phone. The only book I have for now is the Audubon Society; it has 2 plates for green gills. Now I am realizing that the grass is different in the midwest then in the southeast, and it makes the mushrooms look a little different. Makes sense.. The thing that threw me off was the one button has a larger club-like base then any (of a lot) I have seen in Florida. Interesting, it did not cross my mind to consider different appearance from different substrates.