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Harmless🍽️ Edible

🍄 Field mushroom

Agaricus campestris · Agaricaceae

🌳 Temperate Europe🫒 Mediterranean🏔️ Mountains🍁 North America
🧠 To remember it"Pink gills = edible, white gills = death" — the rule you must apply before harvesting any white mushroom in a field.
Field mushroom — Agaricus campestris

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Wild cousin of the button mushroom, growing in grazed pastures. Its most dangerous look-alike is the destroying angel, which is white like it when young: the color of the gills is THE critical criterion that separates edible from deadly.

  1. cap white to cream, silky, convex then flattening, sometimes slightly scaly with age
  2. gills FREE (not touching the stem), PINK when young then chocolate-brown at maturity — never remaining white
  3. stem short, white, spindle-shaped, with a thin, simple, fragile ring
  4. base of stem WITHOUT a volva (no membranous sac)
  5. spore print dark chocolate-brown
  6. flesh white, turning slightly pink when cut, pleasant mushroom/aniseed smell
Sizecap 5-10 cm, stem 3-6 cm
Floweringété-automne
Habitatgrazed pastures, lawns, often in fairy rings

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Destroying angel (Amanita virosa)deadly (amatoxins)

To tell them apart: GILLS: pink then brown in the field mushroom, WHITE and remaining so in the destroying angel (never pink); stem base: no volva in the field mushroom, with a membranous sac-like VOLVA in the destroying angel — always dig up completely before harvesting any white mushroom in meadows or woodland edges; chocolate-brown spore print in the field mushroom, white in the destroying angel

🍽️ Eating it

Partscap, stem (young)
Seasonmai-novembre
Tastepronounced mushroom flavor, stronger than the cultivated button mushroom

Preparation : always cooked; cook it just like the cultivated button mushroom

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.