Deadly Webcap

Where it grows

The deadly webcap fruits in late summer through autumn in damp mossy conifer plantations, especially under Norway spruce, in upland and northerly parts of Europe. It is locally common and has been responsible for serious mass poisonings, including a notorious case in Poland in the 1950s.

How to recognise it

A modest-looking rusty-brown mushroom: pointed conical cap of fox-red to rust, widely spaced gills of the same colour, slender stem with paler yellow tufts and faint cortina remnants. There is nothing visually dramatic about it — it looks like one of dozens of harmless rusty-brown mushrooms in the same habitat.

Edibility & cautions

Deadly. The toxin orellanine causes a slow, silent destruction of the kidneys. Symptoms (thirst, headache, lower-back pain, reduced urine output) typically appear two to twenty days after eating — long after most people would link them to a meal. There is no antidote; severe cases require dialysis and may need a kidney transplant. The deadly webcap has been confused with chanterelles and bay boletes by inexperienced foragers; the rusty-brown gills, cobwebby veil, and rust-brown spore print are all clear warnings.