Volume 11, Part 3, August 1997

INFORMATION ON POISONOUS FUNGIFROM BOOKS, CD-ROM AND THE INTERNET

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As an extension of Roy Watling's article it willbe of interest to note some new sources of infor-mation about toxic fungi. Several popular textson poisonous fungi have been published inrecent years including Children and ToxicFungi, which Dr Watling has written as theessential medical guide to fungal poisoning inchildren . It is obtainable from the RoyalBotanic Garden, Inverleith Row, EdinburghEH35LR.

More significantly perhaps, a current devel-opment through a partnership between thePoisons Unit at Guy's & St Thomas' HospitalTrust and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kewshould come to fruition in the autumn of 1997.Poisonous Fungi in Britain and Ireland willbe published as an Identification System onCD-ROM by The Stationery Office, ElectronicPublishing Sales , 51 Nine Elms Lane, LondonSW8 5DR. Advance information indicates that:Poisonous Fungi in Britain and Ireland is afast, easy and accurate computer method ofidentifying over one hundred and twenty groupsof fungi covering over four hundred species. Thekey features are:

• Identifications are based on macroscopiccharacters

• The questions are simple and non-technical,and many are illustrated with line drawings

• If you do not know the answer you can 'skip'the question

• You can 'review' and change you answer atany time

• For each group of fungi there is a descriptionof macroscopic characters and detailed toxici-ty information

• There are up to ten photographic images foreach fungal group to confirm an identification

'Poisonous Fungi...' asks simple questions aboutthe fungus. Many questions are illustrated andall are non-technical. The answer is used toreduce the number of remaining suspects, andthe next best question is offered. When five orfewer suspects remain you can instantly call upphotographic images of the fungi, identified byscientific and common names, in order to visual-ly confirm the identification, and view a descrip-tion of the fungus and detailed toxicityinformation.

The British Mycological Society's Home Page

URLs on medically important fungi can befound on the Society's website, <http ://www.ulst .ac.uk/faculty/science/bms/BM Surls/*MD>, including two on Mushroom Poisoning:Mushroom Poisoning Survey, a form that canbe downloaded and printed to report instances ofmushroom poisoning to Kew; and Mycotoxins, alink to the US Food & Drug Administration'sFoodborne Pathogenic Microorganisms andNatural Toxins site. The latter is an extensiveand authoritative report providing descriptionsand symptoms under four major headings.

1. PROTOPLASMIC POISONS have longlatent periods and are most likely to be fatal orto cause irreversible organ damage. Examplesare: amatoxins (amanitins) from Amanita phal-loides, A. virosa, A. verna and Galerina autum-nalis; hydrazines (gyromitrins) from Gyromitraeseulenta, G. gigas, and Verpa bohemiea; andorellanine from Cortinarius orellanus.

2. NEUROTOXINS include: musearines - speciesof Inocybe and Clitocybe; ibotenic aeid/museimolfrom A. musearia and A. pantherina; and psilocy-bin - species of Psilocybe, Panaeolus, Copelandia,Gymnopilus, Conocybe and Pluteus.

3. GASTROINTESTINAL IRRITANTS: speciesthat variously cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea,and abdominal cramps include Chlorophyllummolybdites, Tricholoma pardinum, Omphalotusilludens, Paxillus involutus, Russula emetica, verpabohemica, Agaricus arvensis, and Boletus pipera-tus. Laetiporus sulphureus could also be includedhere - its young fruiting bodies are considered edi-ble but, in some people, can cause upsets.

4. DISULFIRAM-LIKE POISONING byCoprinus atramentarius, where the amino acid,coprine, is converted to cyclopropanone hydratein the human body, which interferes with thebreakdown of alcohol, resulting in very unpleas-ant symptoms!

It is also pointed out that most cases (ofmushroom poisoning) occur when toxic speciesare confused with edible species, and a usefulquestion to ask of the victims or their mush-room-picking benefactors is the identi ty of themushroom they thought they were picking. Inthe absence of a well-preserved specimen, theanswer to this question could narrow the possiblesuspects considerably.

RTMGH