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Harmless🍽️ Edible

🍄 St. George's mushroom

Calocybe gambosa · Lyophyllaceae

🌳 Temperate Europe🏔️ Mountains🍁 North America
🧠 To remember it“Flour smell in spring, white spore print = St. George's; flour smell in summer, pink spore print = danger” — check both the season AND the spore print, never one without the other.
St. George's mushroom — Calocybe gambosa

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Early spring mushroom (often the first of the year, around St. George's Day on April 23rd), recognizable by its smell of fresh flour. Its most serious look-alike, the livid pinkgill, shares the same mealy odor — the key feature that sets them apart is the spore print color.

  1. cap creamy white to pale ochre, fleshy, convex, rolled-in margin, WITHOUT a umbo
  2. gills very CROWDED, white to cream, notched
  3. stout, white, robust stem, without a ring
  4. strong and characteristic smell of fresh FLOUR (starch) right when picked
  5. WHITE spore print — decisive safety criterion
  6. grows in spring in fairy rings on lawns and forest edges, never in summer
Sizecap 5-12 cm, stem 3-7 cm
FloweringApril-May (early spring)
Habitatmeadows, lawns, hedgerow edges, often in rings

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Livid pinkgill (Entoloma sinuatum (syn. Entoloma lividum))toxique (syndrome gastro-intestinal sévère, parfois grave)

To tell them apart: both species share the same flour smell and a similar silhouette, but the livid pinkgill appears in SUMMER (never in true early spring like St. George's mushroom), has MORE DISTANT (less crowded) gills, and above all a PINK SPORE PRINT (never white) — spreading the mushroom on white paper for several hours to check the spore print color is the decisive test before any consumption

Death cap (Amanita phalloides)aucun pour le tricholome, confusion rare mais rapportée

To tell them apart: St. George's mushroom grows in spring in fairy rings on lawns, never with a sack-like volva at the base

🍽️ Eating it

Partscap, stem
SeasonApril-May
Tastemealy, mild, firm texture

Preparation : always cooked; one of the first wild edibles of the year, delicious in an omelet or cooked with garlic and parsley

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.