Foraging in Florence

Know these first

What can hurt you around Florence in October

12 species on our hazard list have been recorded near here this month, 4 of which can kill a healthy adult. Learn these before you learn anything you intend to eat.

• Can kill10 records nearby

  Thorn apple (Datura)

  Datura (the whole genus)

  Mistaken for

  Young plants come up among amaranth (morogo) and other wild greens in maize fields and gardens, and children eat the seeds.

  How to tell

  A coarse, rank-smelling plant with large, irregularly toothed leaves, big upright trumpet flowers, white or purple, and a spiny, walnut-sized capsule packed with small dark seeds. Amaranth has smooth-edged leaves and only bristly flower spikes.

  What it does

  Atropine and scopolamine: dry mouth, hot flushed skin, a racing heart, huge pupils, then delirium and hallucinations that can last a day or more. It has killed adults and children.

• Can kill

  5 records nearby

  Death cap

  Amanita phalloides

  Mistaken for

  Paddy straw mushrooms, young Agaricus, and anything picked as a 'field mushroom'.

  How to tell

  Greenish to olive cap with a faint metallic sheen, white gills, a ring, and a sac-like volva at the base. Introduced with European trees and now widespread, especially under oaks.

  What it does

  Responsible for most fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide. Half a cap can kill an adult; symptoms start only after the damage is done.

• Can kill

  1 record nearby

  Small parasols (Lepiota)

  Lepiota (the whole genus)

  Mistaken for

  Shaggy parasol and true parasol mushroom, which are larger relatives worth eating.

  How to tell

  The dangerous ones are small — a cap under about 8 cm — with brown scales on a pale ground and a ring. Size is the whole distinction, and it is not a comfortable one, so the safe rule is to leave every small scaly parasol alone.

  What it does

  Several small Lepiota species carry amatoxins and have killed adults. There is no benefit that justifies the risk.

• Can kill1 record nearby

  Yew

  Taxus baccata

  Mistaken for

  Its sweet red arils look like berries, and it lines churchyards, parks and hedges where foragers pick spruce tips and juniper.

  How to tell

  Flat, dark green needles in two rows, plain green underneath with no white stripes, and red fleshy cups open at one end with a hard seed showing. No cones, no resin smell.

  What it does

  Taxine alkaloids stop the heart. The needles and the seed inside the red flesh are poisonous, there is no antidote, and about 50 g of needles can kill an adult.

• Hospital

  24 records nearby

  Pokeweed

  Phytolacca americana

  Mistaken for

  Its shoots are a traditional southern green, and the berries look like elderberries.

  How to tell

  Thick magenta stem and berries in a drooping raceme, each with a flattened top. Elderberries sit in a flat-topped cluster on green stems.

  What it does

  Roots, seeds and mature plant are toxic; the young shoots are eaten only after several changes of boiling water, and people are hospitalised every year for skipping that.

• Hospital17 records nearby

  Mediterranean jack-o’-lantern

  Omphalotus olearius

  Mistaken for

  Chanterelles, in southern Europe.

  How to tell

  Bright orange clusters growing from stumps and buried roots — especially of olive trees — with sharp, true, crowded gills running down the stem, and the same orange right through the flesh. A chanterelle grows singly from the soil, has blunt forking ridges, and is pale inside.

  What it does

  Illudin S: severe cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea. Not normally fatal.

• Hospital

  13 records nearby

  Fly agaric

  Amanita muscaria

  Mistaken for

  Rarely mistaken once it is open — but the buttons, before the cap expands, look like white eggs and get picked as puffballs.

  How to tell

  Cut any 'puffball' in half. Solid white all the way through is a puffball; the outline of a cap, gills and stem inside is an Amanita button.

  What it does

  Ibotenic acid and muscimol: nausea, then confusion, agitation and deep sedation for several hours. Not usually fatal, but genuinely dangerous in children.

• Hospital5 records nearby

  Euphorbias (milk bushes, naboom, pencil tree)

  Euphorbia (the whole genus)

  Mistaken for

  Prickly pear and other cacti — many African euphorbias are spiny, leafless succulents that look exactly like cacti — and the pencil-stick hedges of Euphorbia tirucalli around farms and villages.

  How to tell

  Break a stem: a euphorbia bleeds white milky latex at once. Cacti such as prickly pear bleed clear or slimy sap, and their spines grow from small fuzzy cushions; euphorbia spines grow singly or in pairs, never from a cushion.

  What it does

  The latex burns skin and mouth, and in the eye can cause temporary blindness. Wear gloves and eye protection near a cut plant, and never rub your eyes.

• Hospital

  4 records nearby

  Panther cap

  Amanita pantherina

  Mistaken for

  The blusher and other brown Amanitas some foragers eat.

  How to tell

  Brown cap with white warts, a ring, and a distinct rim at the top of the bulbous base. The blusher stains pink-red where damaged; this does not.

  What it does

  A stronger dose of the same compounds as fly agaric, with more hospital admissions and occasional deaths.

• Hospital

  3 records nearby

  Bittersweet nightshade

  Solanum dulcamara

  Mistaken for

  Its red berries get picked as currants or tomatoes by children.

  How to tell

  Purple flowers with a yellow beak, leaves with a pair of small lobes at the base, and berries that ripen green to orange to red on the same cluster.

  What it does

  Solanine: burning throat, vomiting, and in a child, worse.

• Hospital

  2 records nearby

  Sulphur tuft

  Hypholoma fasciculare

  Mistaken for

  Honey mushrooms and other autumn clusters on stumps.

  How to tell

  Sulphur-yellow to greenish gills and a bitter taste on the tip of the tongue. Honey mushroom has white to cream gills and a white spore print.

  What it does

  Prolonged vomiting; in quantity it has caused liver damage.

• Hospital2 records nearby

  Devil’s bolete

  Rubroboletus satanas

  Mistaken for

  Ceps (penny bun, porcini), which share its oak and beech woods on chalk, and the red-pored boletes some Europeans eat.

  How to tell

  A chalky white to grey-buff cap, blood-red pores that turn blue when touched, a swollen red stem covered in a fine net, flesh that blues when cut, and a rotten smell in age. A cep has white, then yellow to olive pores that never turn red or blue.

  What it does

  Violent gastroenteritis — hours of vomiting and diarrhoea. Its colours and smell put most people off, so poisonings are rare.

These are recorded within about 40 km of here in this month, from verified public observations. It is not a complete list of what is dangerous — nothing is — and a species missing from it may still be in your woods. Never eat anything identified from a photograph and a description alone.