Only a few mushrooms will kill you, some take several months to do so. There are a lot that will make you wish you were dead…
Now if you wanna get high lick some toads
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How does one negotiate consent?
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My best friend’s Dad was a well-known mycologist (with a specialty in certain slime molds) and occasionally the Chairman of the Botany Department at UC Berkeley. There was an annual mushroom foraging trip with various people in the department - professors and grad students and families - and (IIRC) even they had everyone separately identify things (I mean, that was part of the adventure, too) but he was deadly serious about this being no place for amateurs. He scared the shit out of me with tales of professional mycologists who would get cocky and kill themselves on occasion.
TL;DR DO NOT FUCK AROUND WITH THIS STUFF.
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This is cool, but I question it’s accuracy and it’s dataset. I live in the Pacific Northwest US, and liberty caps are common as dirt around here. If Scotland is that much richer than here, they must have magic mushrooms growing out of their ears.
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More than a few European countries have a ‘right to roam’ law in the books that allows it citizens to freely access otherwise privately owned land, the stipulations of what land is allowed or disallowed varies, but I’m sure these laws more than cover someone going out to forage for shrooms.
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I’ve found that the Liberty Caps that grow naturally in the UK are easily distinguished from all the other shrooms growing in the same environment (src. I ain’t dead).
Right to Roam doesn’t really have much effect in the UK, it usually comes down to; is the landowner going to spot you? (what the eye don’t see, the heart don’t greive) and, what are they going to do about it (shout? get out a shotgun? set a dog on you? lawyer up? silently glower?)
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Recommending a Ben Wheatley film called “A Field in England”
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Looks quite interesting, thanks!
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Well, if the records are for July, as someone said above, then that would be about right, especially when it’s as hot and dry as it is now. Autumn is mushroom/fungi season. And Liberty Caps are significantly different in size and shape to most of the fungi that will kill you. I remember finding them growing on the green space over the road from where I now live when I was at school, they’re the little brown ones that form fairy rings on the grass.
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No, it doesn’t. Very, very few people die or are seriously injured from mushroom poisoning. Obviously you don’t want to start eating any random mushrooms you find, but with a little work it’s possible to identify many desirable species, including psilocybin-containing ones.
The vast majority of serious poisonings are from death caps and destroying angels, which no one is going to mistake for a Psilocybe species. There are some deadly Galerina species that are superficially similar to Psilocybes, but if you limit yourself to ones that bruise blue you’ll be fine.
What problem is that? Picking mushrooms has been shown not to affect the health of the mycelium that produces it.
“ There are many famous blue-bruising mushrooms. A common rule for boletes is that you shouldn’t eat one that has a red pore surface and bruises blue. Because so many blue bruising boletes are poisonous, it’s best to avoid them altogether.
Some people think that all blue bruising mushrooms are safe to eat or are hallucinogenic. The bolete rule above proves that is not true. This myth is an example of why identifying mushrooms through bruising alone is a bad idea”
Wikipedia
Examples of erroneous folklore “rules” include:
- “Poisonous mushrooms are brightly colored.” – Indeed, fly agaric, usually bright-red to orange or yellow, is narcotic and hallucinogenic, although no human deaths have been reported. The deadly destroying angel, in contrast, is an unremarkable white. The deadly Galerinas are brown. Some choice edible species (chanterelles, Amanita caesarea , Laetiporus sulphureus , etc.) are brightly colored, whereas most poisonous species are brown or white.
https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/newsletter/poisonous_mushrooms.html
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Misinformed foragers who don’t seek permission of the landowners or educate themselves about proper foraging technique cause profound destruction to not just the plants they are foraging (or plants they think they’re foraging), but entire ecosystems. Things like this map encourage the worst attitudes about foraging. Nowhere on the map do they even attempt to educate users on healthy foraging guidelines, but there is a wall of text for their TOS. It’s not only irresponsible to encourage amateurs to go mushroom hunting, it is doubly so to not even mention how to mitigate their impact on the ecology.
Just so someone can trip for free? Please.
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Learning to grow mushrooms:
Start here: https://mushroomvideos.com/ The videos are old-school, but full of very good step-by-step information, and worth paying for.
Then go to https://shroomery.org/ and get more information than you will ever be able to grasp.
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To be clear, I’m talking about blue bruising to distinguish between Psilocybe and Galerina, the only dangerous mushrooms they could reasonably be confused with. No one is going to confuse a bolete with a Psilocybe.
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In my mixed state of ignorance and education, I might, but only if I went hunting where both are prevalent. I’d never pick or eat something without 100% certainty of its identity.
One can safely hunt/eat mushrooms with some preparation and knowledge of what’s found in an area.
For example, if boletes are not found in an area where cubensis proliferates, like treeless South Texas cow pastures, there’s no chance of confusing them with cubensis. Boletes grow among trees and I’m not sure if they appear overnight specifically in cow pies after a rain. I am sure this describes cubensis in that region.
Forget Liberty Cap maps. For safety, use this one, courtesy of wikipedia and consult a knowledgeable local:
(just don’t break the law, eh)
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It does in Scotland
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Your video led me to this mashup of some all time US and Brit TV faves and Judas Priest (though you can see Lemmy from Motorhead, too).
Thanks.
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