What poisonous counterparts of edible mushrooms look like

Rospotrebnadzor recently warned mushroom lovers: do not buy gifts from the forest along the roads, they are often radioactive. Sellers pick mushrooms right there, near the highway, and mushrooms, as you know, absorb everything like a sponge. Moreover, the roadside, of course, does not absorb anything useful.

But if this problem is very easy to solve – it is enough just to go deep into the forest for mushrooms, but with the poisonous relatives of edible specimens it is more and more difficult. Mushrooms-imitators sometimes very accurately copy the cepes, champignons, chanterelles. How can you tell them apart? We tell and show.

Mycologist, author of popular science books about mushrooms, popularizer of mushroom cuisine.

“Edible mushrooms have counterparts — those that are unsuitable for food or even poisonous because of their taste. In order not to be mistaken, it is important to know the main differences. “

Porcini

Habitat: prefers mixed forest with spruce, pine, oak and birch; where there is a lot of moss and lichens. It is considered a light-loving mushroom, but sometimes it grows in the shade.

Hat color: the tubular layer (inner side of the cap) is white, yellowish or olive. Any other shades indicate that there is a poisonous specimen in front of you.

Pulp: always white.

Leg: light mesh is located along the entire leg.

Duplicate: gall mushroom

Habitat: mainly on rotten stumps, in the roots of trees, in groups of 5-15 mushrooms, sometimes singly.

Hat color: the tubular layer under the cap is pink or dirty pink.

Pulp: when cut, the pulp turns pink.

Leg: there is a brown mesh.

Does not contain any poison, but is unsuitable for food due to its bitter taste.

Habitat: grows on soil, in moss, under leaves, always in large groups.

Hat color: light yellow to almost white. The color is uniform. The edges are wavy, irregular. The tubular layer is dense, thick, going down the stem of the fungus.

Pulp: white in the middle, yellow at the edges, dense. Turns reddish when pressed. It has a pleasant smell and a sour taste.

Leg: thick, never hollow, no distinction between the cap and the leg. It is the same color as the cap or slightly lighter, smooth and dense, tapering downward.

Duplicate: false chanterelle

Habitat: on dead wood, on old rotting trees, in moss. Can grow in groups or singly.

Hat color: bright orange or brownish, lighter along the edge than in the center. Slightly velvety. The edges are straight.

Pulp: yellow, friable, with an unpleasant odor. When pressed, its color does not change.

Leg: thinner, orange-reddish, darker below. The shape is cylindrical. The section of an adult mushroom is hollow. The cap is clearly separated from the stem.

Habitat: prefers damp places, often found in swamps. It grows in large aggregates, sometimes a single poisonous gallerina can be caught among a large group of edible honey agarics, so you need to be very vigilant when collecting them.

Hat: edible mushrooms have a modest and dull light brown color. The caps are often covered with dark scales. Edible mushrooms have a creamy or yellowish-white shade of the plates.

Pulp: edible mushrooms have a pleasant mushroom smell.

Leg: the main difference by which you can usually recognize a “real” honey agaric is a filmy ring (skirt) on the leg. Usually short (except for the most adult specimens), 4–6 cm, and in the false one it reaches 10 cm. The exception is edible meadow mushrooms, the legs of which grow up to 30 cm in height.

Duplicate: the gallery is bordered

Habitat: prefers humid places, often found near swamps. Grows singly or 2-3 mushrooms. Galerina is extremely poisonous and causes severe liver damage, which, if left untreated, can be fatal.

Hat: bright color, poisonous sulfur-yellow to brick-red (depending on the species). In the central part, the shade is much richer. The shape is rounded-convex, as the mushroom grows, the cap turns into a convex-semi-open one. The plates of the false mushrooms are yellow, the mature ones are olive-brown.

Pulp: unpleasant earthy or moldy odor.

Leg: fibrous, with a whitish coating that wears off when touched.

Habitat: pastures, meadows, clearings, forest edges.

Hat: its outer layer is usually painted white, may have small cracks, scales or thorns (up to 2 mm long). As the mushroom matures, it gradually falls off, like an egg shell, and reveals an inner dirty brown or ocher layer of the shell, covering the spores, which are thrown out after maturation through holes or irregular cracks in the uppermost part of the fruiting body.

Pulp: looks like a ball. Possesses high taste. The mushroom is capable of ripening even when cut, so it must be cooked as soon as possible, within a few hours after cutting. Only young mushrooms, white on the cut, can be used for food. Old raincoats (grandfather’s tobacco) begin to dispel spores that can cause a severe allergic reaction. Old raincoats for pets are especially dangerous.

Duplicate: false raincoat

Habitat: pastures, meadows, clearings, forest edges.

Hat: scaly, dense skin of a yellowish-ocher color, on which there may be small cracks. Young pseudo-raincoat is always smooth, painted in white, off-white or yellowish shades, with age it becomes covered with cracks, warts or ocher-coffee-colored scales. After ripening, the fruit body cracks from above, but the spores do not generate dust, but remain inside the torn mushroom for a long time.

Pulp: dark purple in color, smells like raw potatoes. It remains dense for a long time, while in real raincoats, after darkening, it quickly softens.

Habitat: broadleaf forests.

Hat: in a young mushroom, the cap is covered with mucus. It dries and becomes shiny. The russula is greenish or off-white in color. In an old mushroom, the color of the cap becomes green-olive.

Leg: cylindrical, dense, solid white, not hollow inside, smooth.

Pulp: white, has a pleasant mild taste. When pressed, the inside of the mushroom turns brown, exudes a barely perceptible pleasant aroma.

Duplicate: death cap

Habitat: broadleaf forests.

Hat: can reach 15 cm in diameter, it is round or outstretched in shape. Its color can be different – from green to yellow. Sometimes there are varieties with a completely white head covered with the same white spots.

Leg: there is a skirt on the trunk, at the base there is a tuber, similar to a large bag, from which the mushroom rises.

Pulp: dense and white, does not change on cut. The smell is very faint, almost absent, over time it can become unpleasant. An adult may have a hollow stem.

Habitat: spruce and mixed forests.

Hat: ovate-bell-shaped, then flat-convex, rusty-brownish brown, darker in the middle and with a small flat tubercle, scaly or fibrous. The plates are dirty reddish at first, then dark purple-brown. The hat turns yellow when touched.

Leg: thickened at the base, hollow, off-white, with a white, narrow and thin membranous ring, often disappearing.

Pulp: thin-fleshy, white, quickly reddening in the cut, sweetish taste, sour-pungent smell, pleasant.

Duplicate: fly agaric

Habitat: deciduous forests.

Hat: shirokokonicheskaya, convex with age, sometimes with a small depression in the center, 5-10 cm, slimy, sticky, when dry – shiny, with a straight or slightly curved, sometimes uneven edge. Its color sometimes may not be pure white, but grayish white or even with a pink tint. The plates are thin, usually frayed at the edges, felt, white, frequent.

Leg: cylindrical, sometimes curved, fibrous, velvety-scaly, with a thickened base, often quite deeply immersed in the soil. The ring is wide, silky, with flakes, slightly striped, disintegrating into separate hanging fragments, disappears with age. Volvo is wide and loose, dense, thick, about 3-4 cm.

Pulp: the smell is sweetish, the old mushrooms are unpleasant, the taste is also unpleasant.

Silent Hunt Rules

All mushrooms, even edible ones, can contain toxins that are hazardous to health. You cannot pick mushrooms near the road, within the city, near factories and in fields treated with chemicals. For the same reason, old and wormy mushrooms are inedible. The waste products of the larvae, bacteria and yeast found in the fungus, at best, will lead to indigestion, and at worst – to severe intoxication. Contrary to popular belief, even soaking in salt water does not relieve the fungus of harmful substances. The risk of poisoning is then not reduced.

Collect only those mushrooms that you are absolutely sure of. You can taste it to make sure it is edible. But this does not mean that you need to eat the whole hat whole. Break off a pea-sized piece. This is enough to understand the taste of the mushroom and not harm your health, even if the mushroom is inedible.