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Deadly☠️ To avoid

🍄 Funeral Bell

Galerina marginata · Hymenogastraceae

🌳 Temperate Europe🍁 North America🌲 Boreal
🧠 To remember it"Small and brown on dead wood, just as deadly as the big one" — size tells you nothing about toxicity.
Funeral Bell — Galerina marginata

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Small honey-brown mushroom growing in tufts on dead wood and stumps, containing the same deadly amatoxins as the death cap despite its modest size, which makes it easily overlooked or ignored. Its resemblance to small edible or sought-after hallucinogenic wood-decaying mushrooms makes it a serious danger for inexperienced foragers.

  1. honey-brown to reddish-brown cap, hygrophanous (changes color as it dries), smooth surface
  2. gills rust-brown at maturity, attached to the stem
  3. thin membranous ring on the stem, sometimes fleeting
  4. grows in tufts on dead wood, decaying stumps, and fallen branches of conifers or hardwoods
Sizecap 1-4 cm, stem 3-6 cm
Floweringsummer-autumn
Habitatdead wood, decaying stumps, wood-rich forest litter

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Edible wood-decaying Pholiota species (Pholiota spp.)variable depending on the Pholiota species, dangerous confusion reported

To tell them apart: no reliable eye-only distinction for an amateur; strict safety rule for any small brown mushroom growing in tufts on wood

Hallucinogenic mushrooms of the genus Psilocybe mistakenly sought after (Psilocybe spp.)documented and particularly dangerous confusion during non-expert recreational foraging

To tell them apart: no reliable distinction without mycological expertise; several fatal poisonings have been reported in people who accidentally picked funeral bells thinking they were harvesting psychotropic mushrooms

☠️ What kills

nomAmatoxins (chemically identical to those in the death cap)
dose letale estimeedespite its small size, a relatively small amount of mushrooms can deliver a dangerous dose of amatoxins (approx. comparable in concentration to the death cap)
delai6 to 24 h, with the same deceptive false improvement phase
symptomesidentical to phalloidin syndrome: violent vomiting and diarrhea, false remission, then severe liver failure
antidoteno universally validated antidote; silibinin and N-acetylcysteine as supportive care, liver transplantation possible in severe cases
morts documenteesyes — several documented deaths in North America and Europe, particularly involving confusions with deliberately sought-after hallucinogenic mushrooms

First steps : Call poison control immediately if you have any doubts, even for a small mushroom growing on wood. Do not induce vomiting. Keep a whole sample for laboratory 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.