Important: Safety Warning
This page offers rules for telling edible mushrooms from poisonous ones. No such rules are reliable, and these identifications predate modern mycology. Deadly species closely resemble edible ones, and mistakes are regularly fatal. Never eat a wild mushroom on the strength of this text.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Mushrooms, Edible and Poisonous, to Distinguish
The most simple and easy mode of testing the quality of field fungi is to introduce a silver spoon, or piece of coin of that metal, or an onion, into the vessel in which mushrooms are seething: if on taking either of them out they assume a bluish-black or dark discoloured appearance, there are certainly some dangerous fungi in the pan; if, on the other hand, the metal or onion on being withdrawn from the liquor wears its natural appearance, the fungi may be regarded as wholesome and innoxious.