My Near-Death Experience with


Tricholomopsis decora Kathy Richmond I


share this experience because often when I go looking for mushrooms with beginners their first question is


often: “Can I eat it?” My husband and I have an agreement


that if we find a new mushroom and are considering eating it that we each identify it separately. If we both agree on its identification, only one of us eats a small amount of it. Tat way, in case of toxicity, the other one can assist in treatment. I had just finished completing Dr. Orson Miller’s month-long mushroom


identification course at the Biological Station at Flathead Lake in Montana, so I thought I knew how to correctly identify mushrooms. I knew that when you consider eating a new mushroom, you do the following: • Never eat more than one new mushroom at a time so that if you do get sick you will know the culprit responsible


• Only eat a small amount the first time to make sure you don’t have any adverse reactions, and


•


Always save part of an uncooked specimen so that it can be


Al f k


identified by others in case you get sick.


One of my favorite edible mushrooms


has always been Floccularia straminea (once considered an Armillaria). It has a very nutty, mild flavor and I never have found it in abundance. I had always wanted to try its relative, Floccularia albolanaripes, which is listed also as edible in the mushroom literature. In ≈1995, while returning to our car


“I was freezing and shaking for the next two hours … and had my husband not been there I am convinced I would be dead.”


Tricholomopsis decora, courtesy W. Sturgeon. 32 FUNGI Volume 14:4 Fall 2021


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