Destroying angel

How to recognise it: destroying angel

1. 1

   Whole fruit body white, cap often conical and irregular

2. 2

   White gills throughout the life of the fruit body

3. 3

   Scaly stem and a volva at the bulbous base

4. 4

   Fragile ring, white spore print

Description

Cap

4–10 cm, egg-shaped at first, then conical-bell-shaped, often irregular; pure white, pale cream at the top, yellowing with age; smooth, silky.

Gills

Gills white, crowded, free, with floccose edges.

Stem

7–15 cm, white, distinctly fibrillose-scaly; a delicate, quickly vanishing ring just below the gills; bulbous base with a membranous volva.

Flesh

White, does not change colour. All parts turn bright yellow immediately with KOH (a laboratory feature).

Smell and taste

Smell faint, unpleasant, stuffy. Never taste.

Where and when it grows

Mainly (mountain) coniferous forests under spruces and pines, less often broadleaf under beeches and birches, also bogs; on poor, moist, acidic, sandy soils.

Most often with: spruce, pine, beech, birch, fir

Look-alikes: what it can be mistaken for

• 

  Field mushroom Edible high risk of confusion

  Very young field mushrooms have pale gills. Field mushroom gills soon turn pink, then brown; they have a chocolate-brown spore print and no volva. Do not pick closed “field mushrooms” in the forest.

  Step-by-step comparison: Field mushroom or destroying angel →
• 

  Death cap Deadly poisonous low risk

  The white form of the death cap (var. alba) is equally deadly poisonous; telling the two apart makes no difference to safety.

• 

  False death cap Poisonous medium risk

  The white form of the false death cap (var. alba) usually has patches on the cap, a smell of raw potatoes and a globose bulb with a rim.

Protection and sale

• Species protection: the species is not protected.
• Sale: the species is not on the list of mushrooms approved for sale.

Where you may pick mushrooms →