Be sure your mushroom harvest isn’t poisonous

The annual fall mushroom picking season has begun and the Washington Poison Center is warning people to carefully check wild fungi before eating them.

So far this year, the state’s poison center in Seattle has received 16 calls from Snohomish County with reports of people who ate a mushroom and developed symptoms such as nausea or vomiting, said Alexander Garrard, the poison center’s clinical managing director. Eleven of the 16 cases could be managed at home without a hospital visit. Five people were treated at hospitals, he said. There were no reports of major health problems or deaths.

Statewide, there have been 279 calls to the poison center this year from people who ate a mushroom and had some symptoms, he said. No serious poisonings recently have been reported. But calls to the center peak in the fall and spring, when people are out foraging.

The poison has issued a health alert discouraging people from eating wild mushrooms unless they’ve positively identified them as safe to eat.

Even though most of the state’s wild mushrooms aren’t toxic, there are several poisonous species that can cause serious health problems if eaten. They can cause nausea, vomiting and sometimes even kidney and liver damage.

Kim Traverse, president of the Puget Sound Mycological Society said that many mushrooms look alike. That can fool even more experienced mushroom hunters, he said.

Traverse said he once had such an experience himself. He picked what he thought was his first matsutake mushroom, a prized variety. A fellow mushroom picker quickly pointed out it was not a matsutake, but rather a toxic variety. “She was able to show me why it wasn’t a matsutake,” he said. “Now I’m confident I can tell them apart.”

There are a few mushrooms that are deadly poisonous, he said. “Most of the ones that make you sick just makes your stomach upset,” he said. “It won’t kill you, but there is a handful that can.”

There are no shortcuts to determining which mushrooms are safe and unsafe, he said. “You have to be positive of the identification.”

Traverse said he’s been harvesting and eating wild mushrooms for 40 years and has now eaten about 60 varieties of wild mushrooms. He said when he began harvesting, he always used two books to correctly identify wild mushrooms. “That’s how I learned,” he said.

Traverse said most of his mushroom hunting occurs east of the Cascade Range. Both poisonous and delicious and mushrooms can be found closer to home in urban settings, he said.

One of his favorites is the shaggy parasol that often grows in wood chips found in people’s gardens. “It’s a very tasty one,” Traverse said. Prince mushrooms, a relative to the common button mushroom, often show up in people’s yards, he said. “It’s nice when you just have to step outside to collect.”

Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.

Learn more

If you believe that you or a family member has ingested a potentially poisonous mushroom, or if any symptoms develop within 24 hours of eating wild mushrooms, call the Washington Poison Center at 800-222-1222.

More information about mushroom hunting and classes on mushroom identification is available from the Puget Sound Mycological Society at www.psms.org/index.php. Information about the most toxic mushrooms found in the Pacific Northwest is available at www.psms.org/poisoning.php.