I’ve been on a few mushroom forays recently. The advice is clear: if you’re in California (especially north and central coast) do not put any wild mushrooms in your mouth especially this year

We have many lookalikes that look ‘safe’. More than 40 people have been poisoned, 3-4 dead, since Nov. many of them immigrants who are misled by some of our deathly mushrooms looking exactly the same as the ones they know

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-02-08/california-mushroom-poisonings-are-on-rise-heres-whats-being-done-to-curb-exposure

#Mushrooms #California

California mushroom poisonings are on the rise. Here's what's being done to curb exposure

Recent news of more than 30 cases of mushroom-related illness and death has prompted some Southern Californians to seek a mushroom education.

Los Angeles Times
@skinnylatte I grew up in a place where morale mushrooms could be found if you knew where to look, and I can recognize them. There's a whole family of mushrooms called puff balls that are all safe to eat, although they don't all taste good. I just go by the assumption that unless I'm with somebody that knows what they're doing, anything else that looks like a mushroom that's not a puffball and it's not a morale might be deadly.

@wbpeckham California has many false morels

And we have toxic puff ball type mushrooms