A mushroom expert ate "involution" mushrooms and died of poisoning?

Although you promised me that you would no longer try poisonous mushrooms, but thinking of the surprise of picking mushrooms and the delicious taste on the tip of your tongue, you still resolutely embarked on the journey of looking for edible wild mushrooms.

This time you are full of confidence, this time you are full of experience, this time you - alas, you are still so unwilling to listen to advice!

Picking mushrooms

(Image source: pixabay.com)

You know that the biggest trouble of picking wild mushrooms is the poisonous mushrooms that are hard to guard against. Eating these poisonous mushrooms can cause diarrhea at the least, or even hospitalization in the ICU, or even death. Most of the above are reactions that will occur in a short period of time after eating poisonous mushrooms, but there is actually a kind of poisonous mushroom that is hidden deep. Maybe you have eaten it many times without any problem, but suddenly you will be poisoned after eating it once, and this time the poisoning may be fatal.

What I want to introduce to you today is a wild mushroom with this property - Paxillus involutus.

Part 1

The history of the development of the curled edge mushroom

Paxillus spp. is a type of poisonous mushroom that cannot be eaten. All members of this genus are not recommended for human consumption. The genus name Paxillus means "nail" or "small wooden stake". The current Chinese name is "Paxillus genus". Because the gills of Paxillus spp. are often connected to form a net, mushrooms in this group are also called "net gill fungi".

Bulliard, a French mycologist, first discovered Agaricus contiguus in 1785. Like many mushrooms of that era, Agaricus contiguus was classified under the genus Agaricus and was called Agaricus contiguus, which can be translated as "connected mushroom".

In 1786, German mycologist Batsch further refined the species of Agaricus fasciatus and added a new modifier involutus, meaning "involutus". Although it began to curl inward, the Agaricus fasciatus still belonged to the genus Agaricus.

In 1836, Fries, a famous Swedish naturalist and the father of modern mycology, established the genus Paxillus, with Paxillus involutus as the model species. The Paxillus involutus, which is recognized as involutus, has finally become famous!

Part 2

How poisonous are involuta mushrooms?

In the autumn of 1944, German mycologist Schäffer and his wife discovered a large number of curled-edge mushrooms during a short trip. This mushroom was considered a very delicious edible mushroom at the time, and the couple had eaten it frequently in the past without any problems.

At noon that day, they made lunch with the curled-edge pileus mushrooms they had collected. About an hour after eating, Schäffer developed symptoms of mushroom poisoning - vomiting, diarrhea and fever, and kidney failure the next day. Due to limited medical conditions at the time, Schäffer was unable to receive effective help. After being tortured for 17 days, the mycologist passed away.

For a while, this case of a mushroom expert being poisoned and dying from eating mushrooms alerted many people, but some people still continued to eat this mushroom because they did not understand or pay attention to the toxicity of the curled edge mushroom. As for why the curled edge mushroom randomly selected lucky people from the edible people and what the selection criteria were, people at that time did not know.

In the mid-1980s, a Swiss doctor named Flammer discovered an antigen in the Pleurotus ostreatus that could trigger the human immune system to produce antibodies. After the antigen-antibody complex was formed, the body's own red blood cells were regarded as foreign bodies, and then attacked the red blood cells, causing coagulation and hemolysis, which could lead to a variety of complications, including acute renal failure, shock, acute respiratory failure, disseminated intravascular coagulation, etc.

Rarely, people may develop an immune hemolytic syndrome if they repeatedly ingest P. curly-margin mushrooms. Another common condition is that people who consume P. curly-margin mushrooms for a long time (sometimes for many years) may experience mild gastrointestinal symptoms that you would not associate with eating this mushroom.

Eating raw or uncooked curled edge mushrooms can cause gastrointestinal discomfort. Some studies believe that it contains toxins that can be destroyed by cooking, but this does not seem to be the only toxin in the curled edge mushroom. Some toxins are stable to heat and acid and cannot be detoxified by cooking or frying. The structures of these toxin components are unknown. There are even studies that believe that the curled edge mushroom contains substances that damage chromosomes. If present, this means that this mushroom can cause cancer.

Part 3

Please, stop picking it.

Now that we know the power of the curled edge mushroom, how do we identify it?

The curled edge mushroom is widely distributed and can be seen in many areas of my country. It has a brown head. When it is young, the edge of the cap curls inward to protect the immature gills, which gradually flatten out and often form a shallow cup shape. When it is wet, the cap is sticky, but when it is dry, it feels like plastic. The biggest distinguishing feature is the extended, yellow to brown gills, which are easy to peel off from the flesh (just like the pore part of the boletus). Press it twice with your hand and you can see obvious injuries and browning. After cutting it open, you will find that its flesh is very thick, and the injured flesh will also turn brown.

Although the curled-edge mushroom has gills, it is closer to the bolete in morphology and genetic relationship. It belongs to the Paxillaceae family of the Boletales order. Its gills near the stipe are often connected to each other to form a network, which can perhaps be understood as an alternative "pore".

Like most species of Boletus, the Curly Edged Pileated Mushroom is considered a mycorrhizal fungus. You can find it in all kinds of broad-leaved forests and mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forests. From June to October every year, you can always see many people picking and eating this mushroom, and sometimes you can fill a whole bucket. People who don't know about this mushroom are happy to pick it, while those who are familiar with it are trembling.

Now, take out your Science Compound exclusive mushroom notes.

That's right, it's the book that teaches you to recognize the "red umbrellas and white poles" that will make you lie down after eating them; takes you through the "white umbrellas and white poles" (click here to see the white umbrellas and white poles, which will also make you lie down after eating them!) that once changed the fate of Europe; and lets you avoid the soul-binding chains of the "Black Impermanence" of the mushroom world (click here to see the "Black Impermanence" of the mushroom world: once eaten by mistake, you will die?).

Now let us also record the story of the curled-edge mushroom.

I wish you all a happy outing, but please also be careful not to pick wild mushrooms on the roadside, otherwise you might...

References:

[1] Sayyed A, Hussain A. Chapter 35 - Paxillus[A]. See: N. Amaresan, M. Senthil Kumar, K. Annapurna, et al. Beneficial Microbes in Agro-Ecology[M]. Academic Press, 2020: 695–706.

[2] Atlas of China’s Large Fungal Resources[M]. Zhongyuan Farmers Publishing House, 2015.

[3] Paxillus involutus, Brown Rollrim mushroom [EB/OL]. /2021-12-23. https://www.first-nature.com/fungi/paxillus-involutus.php.

[4] Chen Zuohong, Yang Zhuliang, Tuligul, et al. Identification of poisonous mushrooms and prevention of poisoning[M]. Science Press, 2016.

Source: Science Institute