The first time I can remember I ate a mushroom was when I was 7. I mom prepared mushroom soup and it was delicious. I remember asking her to prepare more often and she promised she would if she found a good one on the field or when she went to the market. I grew up to know that mushrooms are fungi, and some mushrooms can be poisonous. This got me thinking that foraging for mushrooms can be a very dangerous task and I began to wonder how my mum was able to find the safe ones from the poisonous ones. So which mushrooms are deadly?
There are about 14,000 known mushroom species but only about 10% of the mushrooms are edible while about 88% of the mushrooms are inedible as they can taste terrible or give discomfort when eaten while the remaining 1 to 2% of mushrooms are outright toxic which can lead to damage when consumed or death in its worse case scenario and when I say death, people die in the 100s yearly from consuming mushrooms that are toxic.
The award of the most deadliest mushroom in the world goes to Amanita phalloides also known as the Death Cap Mushroom with less than half the cap of the mushroom to send one to their early grave. It is believed that Claudius (Roman Emperor) was killed by a dose of it by his 4th wife in 54AD. In the young stage of the mushroom, it can be mistake for edible variety like paddy straw mushrooms or Juvenile Puff balls. The mushroom releases three different types of toxins which amatoxins, phallotoxins, and virotoxins, with the most lethal of them being Amatoxins which causes liver failure.
Actually, Amatoxin is found in a whole lot of toxic mushrooms and it is responsible for about 90% of all mushroom related death yearly and since the toxin is heat stable, per-boiling, cooking, steaming, or frying the mushroom will not reduce its toxicity and its death isn't quick rather it is slow and agonizing.
Another mushroom in the Amanita specie is the Destroying Angels ranging from Amanita virosa, A. bisporigera and A. ocreata, and similar to the death cap I just discussed, they can be mistaken for edible variety and they contain amatoxins that can deadly just like the death cap mushroom. Other mushrooms contain amatoxin like the Deadly Dapperling (Lepiota brunneoincarnata) which is toxic to the liver, and can be mistaken for grey knight mushroom.
Cortinarius spepcies made up of specie like the deadly webcaps and the fool's web cap and this mushroom when eaten releases a nephrotoxin called orellanine which can take up to three week before symptoms begin to show and at this time, it is too late as the kidneys would have been affected. Another lethal mushroom is the Podostroma cornu-damar with the toxin trichothecene mycotoxins which can lead to multiple organ failure, causing symptoms like abdominal pain, peeling skin, hair loss, acute kidney failure, liver necrosis, and death.
When next you are in the woods looking for mushrooms, you should be careful not to pick up a poisonous one so it doesn't send you to the hospital or damage your organs. Health is wealth and although food gives good health, it is important to eat good and safe food.
For Further Reading
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/fungi-and-lichens/deathcap/
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2025/02/poisonous-mushrooms/
https://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/science/herbarium/death-cap/
https://totallywilduk.co.uk/2024/08/22/deadly-webcap-mushroom/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3521283/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5065333/