Death Cap vs Field Mushroom
The test that settles it
Agaricus has pink gills maturing to chocolate brown and a brown spore print. Death cap gills stay white.
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.
Death Cap
Can killAmanita phalloides
- Under the cap
- gills
- Spore print
- white
- Growing on
- soil, hardwood litter
- Stem
- White, with a soft skirt-like ring hanging near the top and — critically — a membranous sac at the base. That sac is often buried, so the mushroom must be dug up rather than picked to see it.
- If eaten
- Deadly. A single cap can kill an adult. The apparent recovery phase after the first day is the most dangerous part, because it delays treatment while liver damage continues. Any suspected ingestion is an emergency — call poison control immediately and do not wait for symptoms.
Field Mushroom
No known toxinsAgaricus campestris
- Under the cap
- gills
- Spore print
- brown, purple-black
- Growing on
- grass, soil
- Stem
- Short, white, with a fairly delicate ring and no cup or sac at the base.
- If eaten
- No significant toxins, and widely eaten. But this is the species people confuse with destroying angels, with fatal results. If the gills are white, stop. Confirm with an expert.
Confirming death cap
- White spore print, white gills that stay white, and a white stem.
- Membranous cup (volva) at the stem base. Dig the whole mushroom up — pulling it snaps the base off and loses the single most important feature.
- Skirt-like ring near the top of the stem.
- Growing from soil near oak and other hardwoods, never on wood.
Confirming field mushroom
- Gills start pink and mature to chocolate brown. Gills that stay white are a serious warning.
- Brown to purple-brown spore print.
- No cup or sac at the stem base. Dig it up and check.
- Growing in grass, typically in grazed pasture rather than woodland.
Still not certain?
Then you have your answer, and it is not to eat it. Run the full key, then take the specimen to someone who can hold it.
Identify it step by step