Foraging in Riga

Know these first

What can hurt you around Riga 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 kill

  6 records nearby

  Brown roll-rim

  Paxillus involutus

  Mistaken for

  Assorted brown gilled mushrooms; it was eaten as an edible in Europe for generations.

  How to tell

  Inrolled felty cap margin, gills that bruise dark brown and can be rubbed off the cap, growing under birch.

  What it does

  Sensitises the immune system over repeated meals, then one day triggers it to destroy the eater's own red blood cells. People have died after eating it safely for years.

• Can kill

  4 records 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 kill

  2 records nearby

  Lily of the valley

  Convallaria majalis

  Mistaken for

  Ramps and wild garlic — it comes up in the same woods at the same time, with the same shape of leaf.

  How to tell

  Crush a leaf. Ramps smell unmistakably of onion and garlic; lily of the valley smells green and of nothing else. If it does not smell of onion, it is not a ramp. Ramps also have a reddish-purple stalk base.

  What it does

  Cardiac glycosides that disturb the heart's rhythm. Every part is toxic, including the water cut flowers have stood in.

• Can kill1 record nearby

  Ragworts and groundsels (Senecio)

  Senecio (the whole genus)

  Mistaken for

  Wild greens and herbal teas — and, in the past, home-grown wheat: Senecio in the flour poisoned whole families in South Africa's George district in 1918.

  How to tell

  Daisy-family plants with yellow flower heads (with or without petals), each head wrapped in a single row of narrow green bracts, often black-tipped, and seeds carrying white fluffy parachutes. A yellow daisy you can't name does not go in the pot.

  What it does

  Pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which baking does not destroy. They block the small veins of the liver (veno-occlusive disease): pain, a swollen liver and fluid in the belly, and in many cases cirrhosis. Children are the most vulnerable.

• Hospital

  16 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.

• Hospital7 records nearby

  Fibrecaps (Inocybe)

  Inocybe (the whole genus)

  Mistaken for

  Little brown and buff mushrooms picked in lawns, parks and woods by people after fairy ring champignons, St George’s mushroom or anything ‘meadow-ish’.

  How to tell

  Small brown or straw-coloured caps, often with a pointed centre and radiating fibres that split at the rim, gills turning grey-brown to snuff-brown, a brown spore print, and often a spermatic or green-corn smell. There are hundreds of species, separated only under a microscope — leave every one.

  What it does

  Many contain muscarine: sweating, salivation, tears, cramps, blurred vision and a slow heart within 15–30 minutes. Atropine reverses it; a large dose can stop breathing.

• Hospital

  5 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

  Common earthball

  Scleroderma citrinum

  Mistaken for

  Puffballs — it is round and it is on the ground.

  How to tell

  Cut it. An earthball has a thick hard rind and turns purple-black and marbled inside very early. An edible puffball is soft and pure white throughout, like a marshmallow.

  What it does

  Violent gastrointestinal illness; the spore dust irritates the lungs.

• Hospital

  2 records nearby

  Man on horseback

  Tricholoma equestre

  Mistaken for

  Nothing — it was a prized edible until recently.

  How to tell

  Yellow gills and yellow-tinged flesh, in sandy pine woods.

  What it does

  Repeated large meals have caused rhabdomyolysis — muscle breakdown severe enough to kill. Its edible reputation is out of date.

• Hospital2 records nearby

  Woolly milkcap

  Lactarius torminosus

  Mistaken for

  Saffron milk cap and the other orange milk caps eaten across Europe.

  How to tell

  A pinkish-salmon cap with darker rings and a shaggy, woolly, inrolled rim, white peppery milk, and always near birch. A saffron milk cap is carrot-orange with a smooth rim, bleeds carrot-orange milk, grows under pine and bruises green.

  What it does

  Raw or lightly cooked, it causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea — torminosus means ‘causing colic’. In Finland and Russia it is eaten only after parboiling and salting, which destroys the irritant.

• Hospital

  2 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.

• Unpleasant

  1 record nearby

  Buttercups

  Ranunculus (the whole genus)

  Mistaken for

  Young greens gathered in damp meadows, and marsh marigold.

  How to tell

  Glossy five-petalled yellow flowers; the leaves are acrid and burn the tongue when tasted raw.

  What it does

  Blisters the mouth and skin. Cooking destroys it, which is why marsh marigold is always boiled.

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.