Shaggy Ink Cap
No known toxinsCoprinus comatus · also called lawyer's wig, shaggy mane
Shaggy ink caps appear overnight on lawns, verges and disturbed ground, and are unmistakable because of what they do rather than what they look like — the cap digests itself into black liquid within about 24 hours of opening.
Quick facts
- If eaten
- No significant toxins, though only very fresh specimens are used and they must be cooked promptly. Note the related common ink cap, Coprinopsis atramentaria, causes a severe reaction if alcohol is consumed within a couple of days of eating it.
- Under the cap
- gills
- Spore print
- black
- Cap
- Tall, cylindrical and shaggy with upturned white scales, like a barrister's wig. It dissolves from the bottom edge upward into black ink within a day.
- Stem
- Tall, white, hollow, with a loose movable ring.
- Growing on
- grass, soil, woodchip
- Season
- Summer through autumn.
How to identify it
- Tall cylindrical shaggy white cap, distinctly taller than wide.
- Deliquesces into black ink from the rim upward, usually within a day.
- Black spore print.
- Growing in grass, wood chip and disturbed ground, often in groups.
What it is confused with
One test settles each of these.
Common ink cap
Common ink cap is grey, smoother and bell-shaped, and reacts dangerously with alcohol.
Read this before anything else
- Never eat a wild mushroom identified by a website or an app.That includes this one. These tools narrow possibilities; they cannot see your mushroom, its base, its smell or its habitat, and the difference between a meal and a liver transplant is sometimes a feature buried in the soil.
- Get it confirmed in person by an experienced local forager or a mycological society. Most regions have one, most run free identification sessions, and they will look at the actual specimen.
- Dig, do not pull. The cup at the base of a death cap is often underground. Pulling the mushroom leaves the most important feature in the soil.
- If someone has eaten a wild mushroom and feels unwell, call poison control now — in the US, 1-800-222-1222. Do not wait for symptoms to worsen. Amatoxin poisoning has a false recovery phase, and delayed treatment is what makes it fatal. Save any uneaten pieces for identification.