Mushrooms, Toadstools, Fungi, Funghi, whatever you know them as, many varieties are poisonous and in Italy it is advisable to take them to your local Health authority for identification before even considering eating them. In fact local authorities often run courses on identifying them, so surely it is better to be safe than sorry.
I read a newspaper article on line recently which had the following to say:
'On October 22 an entire family (father, mother and daughter) died after eating poisonous mushrooms. In Italy there are between 600 and 1,300 cases every year of poisoning.
For this reason Health Minister Renato Balduzzi warned recently that to avoid unnecessary risks, people should always bring picked mushrooms to experts for examination before eating them'.
The full article can be read by following the link.
Poisonous mushrooms destroy liver and kill!
This is why we do not risk eating mushrooms from our garden! Apart from these which we are 200% sure about but even then we will only consume if they are freshly picked.
According to Wikipedia A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source.
I hope you find them as fascinating as I did when I was photographing them. The photos should enlarge if you click on them individually, for a closer look!
The next three photos are of the same fungus taken over a three day period, firstly day one emerging.
Three days later it was looking like this and appeared to be very attractive to flies!
The same variety collapsed and decaying a few days later.
Finally I want to try and give you an idea of the size of some of these specimens.
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All photos are my own taken in October and November 2012.
All rights reserved by LindyLouMac Photo Collection
The full set of photos may also be viewed individually in my album entitled
Funghi in Our Garden - Autumn 2012 at My Flickr account.
