Mushroom Toxins — A Brief Review of the Literature

Abstract

Deaths from mushroom poisoning are uncommon in this country chiefly because gathering wild mushrooms for the table is the hobby of only a few enthusiasts, but also because the great bulk of fungi are harmless. A few are deadly.Of 24 fatal cases recorded in American literature since 1924 and in personal communications, 11 were due to the bulb agarics with white, amyloid-staining spores (Amanita verna and its subspecies and American phenotypes of A. phalloides),† 7 to the ascomycete Gyromitra esculenta, 1 to the panther mushroom A. pantherina, whose white spores do not take the amyloid . . .