Sometimes myc fungus is Really REALLY REALLY bad....

[rockm]

Death cap mushrooms are one kind of (ecto) mycorrhizae, but not one that you want to encourage...

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/deadly-mushroom-arrives-canada/581602/

Interesting graph:
"Death caps appear in these neighborhoods decades after planting (young nursery grown trees), because the mushroom lies dormant for that long. Its mycelia live in the roots of a host tree until the tree reaches maturity—when it stops pouring energy into growth and starts storing sugars. For these European imports, that’s about half a century. When surplus sugars enter the fungal web, the first fruiting bodies emerge."

 

[penumbra]

Fascinating article.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

What's so bad about it?
They are native to my country, and as long as you don't eat them you'll not turn into a zombie before dying all of a sudden. If they protect my beeches - and I'm sure they do with a killer cocktail like that - then it's fine with me. After all, it's "just" an antibiotic like every fungus produces. This one just has the tendency to kill humans as well, but many antibiotics (I dare to say over 80%) do that. That's why it's so hard to find better ones suited for medicine; they're produced en masse by all micro-organisms, but it's quite hard to select one that only kills micro-organisms and not the rest of the body they reside in.

Fun fact: The most fungi related deaths are still attributed to the use (or misidentification) of magic mushrooms.

 

[rockm]

What's so bad about it?
They are native to my country, and as long as you don't eat them you'll not turn into a zombie before dying all of a sudden. If they protect my beeches - and I'm sure they do with a killer cocktail like that - then it's fine with me. After all, it's "just" an antibiotic like every fungus produces. This one just has the tendency to kill humans as well, but many antibiotics (I dare to say over 80%) do that. That's why it's so hard to find better ones suited for medicine; they're produced en masse by all micro-organisms, but it's quite hard to select one that only kills micro-organisms and not the rest of the body they reside in.

Fun fact: The most fungi related deaths are still attributed to the use (or misidentification) of magic mushrooms.

"and as long as you don't eat them you'll not turn into a zombie before dying all of a sudden"

Well, see that's the problem. Every spring here in D.C. we get stories in the paper about people (not looking for magic shrooms, but looking for their dinner tables) collecting and eating mushrooms that shouldn't be consumed. those people die or wind up with serious health issues. FWIW, if the guy in the article is wiping his hands being careful not to get the stuff absorbed into his skin, you have to wonder what would happen if you're repotting a tree with this kind of myc and not wearing gloves...just sayin,

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

It was tested a long time ago and it's in a lot of 'quirky science facts' books that these toxins are not absorbed by the skin. Not by the skin on your hands and forearms at least. Sensitive skin patches would show a minor reaction if exposed enough, and given that the layers of skin aren't already naturally shedded before the toxins do their work. We sweat outwards, our skin grows like bark, it's supposed to protect us from stuff like this.

You should wear gloves to prevent ringworm, that lives on nearly every plant species. It's one of the most common gardeners issues.

As for people hunting edible mushrooms and wrongly identifying them and ingesting them while the risks are in literally every manual.. That's like wearing a deer costume while running through hunting grounds during hunting season. And hunting grounds usually don't have labels that say you should be carefull in deer costumes. Mushroom guides have these warnings all over. I'm not saying they asked for it, but it is quite reckless. I don't blame the bullet, I blame the people quite literally chewing that bullet.

I just want to put things into perspective, the death caps are dangerous when ingested and everyone should avoid eating them and their lookalikes to be safe. But if you have found ways to get it to pass through one of the best human made barriers ever produced, then you would have died from bacterial infections way before you got your first diaper change. There are ways to dermally take up these toxins, but it takes an exceptional combination of circumstances to happen by accident. And quite a large dose too.

 

[Shima]

There are old mushroom hunters and bold mushroom hunters but no old, bold, mushroom hunters.

 

[just.wing.it]

I steer clear of most shroomies....

 

[Smoke]

The good news.... the articles are on the decline as stupid people die off. I bet more people are dieing from roundup induced cancer than these mushrooms?