In article ,
Christina Websell wrote:

No spores were shed on to my white paper overnight. I expected the spores
to look like dust - is that correct? If so, zilch. It did make the paper
wet by my putting it gills down so the paper was stained brown. Maybe it
had shed all the spores before I picked it, it was certainly getting elderly
before I noticed it and had been chomped a bit by slugs who must be immune.
Maybe I will never know what it is, I only get one a year and it really,
absolutely, looks safe.
If I need a microscope to find the spores of this beastie, well, I don't
have one ;-)
I would love to know what Nick thinks it might be.
It cannot be a Heleboma as they only appear in September plus.

Spores are often not visible as such, but only as a stain, but
that all sounds very bizarre. I was thinking of Stropharia,
but it doesn't sound quite right.

The reason that those of us who know something about edible
fungi have been saying DO eat the edible ones that don't look
like supermarket mushrooms, and DON'T eat the ones that do, is
precisely because of the number of nasties that look like
field mushrooms but aren't.

There are simple rules to avoid the really lethal ones, but no
simple rules to be quite certain of avoiding a few that might
give you a bit of gut-rot. As you discovered.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.