Mushroom

True... however if you want to live or not, you should choose wizely on what type you eat...

 

Mushrooms don't like me, so I don't eat them no matter what their accent is.

 

What ever happened to Alice after she ate the 'shrooms .........
She's been in Wonderland for a week, Isn't she ever coming back.....

 

Are Swiss mushrooms full of holes?

Tom

 

Hmmmm... soooo... they don't have death-caps in the Alps...

 

Do they grow the "silly" mushrooms there?

:nod:

 

So which ones do you eat twice? Shiitake?

 

ound:

 

Mmmm, mushrooms....

 

A young friend of mine here in Kunming, Yunnan Province is now recovering from mushroom poisoning. He spent a few days in hospital and then a week of outpatient treatments in a hyperbaric chamber. He looked iffy to me when I saw him in the hospital, but now seems well recovered.

This province is famous for a wide variety of edible wild mushrooms, but mis-identification in the field is a problem because of similar appearances. He got dosed at a restaurant.

I have had some excellent dinners at the "Yunnan King of Mushrooms" restaurant, but one is always putting implicit faith is the people doing the picking. I guess there are more than 50 wild species eaten locally here; some of them endemic.

Also, about a month ago in Science magazine, news of a species linked to several hundred sudden cardiac deaths in asymptomatic peoeple in the province. That may be linked to a unique polypeptide in the 'shroom, or because it is an amazing barium bio-concentrator. Research continues at the Kunming Institute of Botany, just up the road.

As far as Switzerland, I don't buy it. An excerpt from this website:

the Puffball, Poisonous Mushrooms

"In a two-year study of mushroom poisonings in Switzerland, at least 19 cases were reported to have been from muscarine poisoning."

 

Humungous fungus: world's largest organism?

Thursday, 10 April 2003

The discovery of the world's largest fungus - up to 8,500 years old and
carperting nearly 10 square kilometres of forest floor - has raised
questions about what constitutes an individual organism.

A study of a
tree-killing fungus in rugged northeast Oregon, USA, found that a single
individual covered an area equivalent to about 1,600 football fields,
according to a report in the current issue of the Canadian Journal of
Forest Research.





The fungus is the most outstanding known individual of the Armillaria
ostoyae species, which grows in high-latitude northern hemisphere
forests and causes large production losses due to root disease. It lives
in the soil and spreads mainly along tree roots by shoestring-like
threads called rhizomorphs. Apart from dead and dying trees, its only
surface evidence are its fruiting bodies, known commonly as honey
mushrooms.

More.

 

Button mushrooms

 

I read that article and I'm glad you mentioned it. A neat story of where solid science and a little education can save a great many lives.

 

Lest a wrong impression be given, the Puffball is generally considered
safe to eat.



Calvatia, Calbovista, Lycoperdon

Puffballs come in many sizes, some as small as a marble and some as
large as a basketball. The name "puffball" is used here to refer to three
genera of fungi, Calvatia, Calbovista, and Lycoperdon. Their surfaces
may be smooth, covered with small or large warts, or ornamented with
spikes. Puffballs are usually white and round, and are attached to the
ground with little or no apparent stem.

Most puffballs are safe to eat, although rare reactions have been
reported. Assuming you have obtained reliable puffballs, you should
still follow these steps before eating them:

They must be all-white inside. Any shade of yellow or purple makes
them inedible or upsetting.
When cut, they must have a uniform internal consistency. The external
appearance of immature Amanita species is similar to puffballs.
However, the cap and gills of these unexpanded mushrooms become
apparent when the egg-shaped fungi are cut in half. The Amanita genus
includes the most poisonous species of mushrooms.

More, including recipes.

The misleadingly titled earlier cite, the Puffball, Poisonous Mushrooms,
is an article about poisonous mushrooms in the publication, The
Puffball, the newsletter of the Willamette Valley Mushroom Society.