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Deadly☠️ To avoid

🍄 Fool's funnel (Ivory funnel)

Clitocybe dealbata · Tricholomatacées

🌳 Temperate Europe🍁 North America
🧠 To remember it“Pliable stem, you're good to go; brittle stem, poison show” — test the flexibility before trusting a fairy ring.
Fool's funnel (Ivory funnel) — Clitocybe dealbata

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

A small, whitish mushroom found in lawns and pastures, often forming fairy rings, rich in muscarine just like inocybes. It grows in the same grassy habitats as the edible Scotch bonnet and looks similar enough to cause dangerous mix-ups for foragers picking from fairy rings without checking every single specimen.

  1. white to creamy-white cap, dull, sometimes slightly zoned, with an inrolled margin when young
  2. white, crowded, decurrent gills (running down the stem)
  3. slender, whitish stem, lacking a ring or volva
  4. grows in lawns, pastures, often in circles or lines (fairy rings)
Sizecap 2-5 cm, stem 2-4 cm
Floweringsummer-autumn
Habitatlawns, pastures, edges of sports fields, often in fairy rings

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Scotch bonnet / Fairy ring mushroom (choice edible) (Marasmius oreades)none for the Scotch bonnet, classic mix-up in fairy rings

To tell them apart: the Scotch bonnet has widely spaced gills and a tough, pliable stem (it springs back if you bend it, unlike the brittle stem of the fool's funnel); the fool's funnel has crowded, decurrent gills that are more fragile

☠️ What kills

nomMuscarine in high concentration
dose letale estimeea small amount can cause severe muscarinic syndrome, potentially fatal for elderly individuals or those with heart conditions (approx)
delai15 to 30 minutes
symptomesmuscarinic syndrome: profuse sweating, salivation, lacrimation, miosis, bradycardia, hypotension, digestive distress
antidoteatropine is an effective specific antidote, to be administered as an emergency medical treatment
morts documenteesyes, particularly among elderly people or heart patients, following mix-ups with the Scotch bonnet during fairy ring harvests

First steps : Call poison control immediately as soon as heavy sweating and salivation start after eating mushrooms picked from a lawn. Systematically check the stem flexibility of every single mushroom harvested from a fairy ring before eating. Keep a sample for identification.

Sources (3)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.