Parasol mushroom Macrolepiota procera

Right now

When to look

From July to November. Favourable temperatures: 12 to 20 °C. It usually fruits 4 to 11 days after at least 12 mm of rain.

Where to look

Habitat

Meadows, woodland edges, clearings, pathsides

Soil

Neutral, rich soils (pH 5.5 to 7.5)

How to recognise it

A large species reaching 15 to 35 cm tall. Cap 10 to 25 cm, at first shaped like a drumstick then spreading out, pale beige covered with large, regular brown scales, with a smooth brown central umbo. Gills free, creamy white, crowded, separated from the stem by a collar (collarium); spore print white. Stem very tall and slender, hollow, rigid, bulbous but without a sharp-rimmed bulb, distinctly mottled and banded with brown on a pale background, bearing a thick double ring that slides along the stem. Flesh white, unchanging, the cap pulling away from the stem like a cork.

Dangerous look-alikes

• Deadly dapperling (and small dapperlings in general)

  Lepiota brunneoincarnata
  deadly

  Cap no more than 5 to 7 cm, covered with concentric reddish-brown scales on a cream background; ring single, fleeting and fixed (it does not slide); stem short, white at the top then decorated lower down with pinkish to wine-brown bands and garlands, which are nothing like the regular snakeskin mottling of the parasol's stem. Practical rule: discard any ‘parasol’ whose cap measures less than 10 cm, and any stem that is not distinctly mottled and banded with brown on a pale background, whether smooth or garlanded. This species contains amatoxins (α- and β-amanitin), like the death cap, and has caused fatal poisonings.

• Brown shaggy parasol

  Chlorophyllum brunneum
  poisonous

  Similar size but stem white and smooth, not mottled, ring single, and above all a distinctly marginate basal bulb, with a sharp rim like a saucer; flesh reddening when cut, whereas the parasol's stays white. Nitrogen-rich places: gardens, compost heaps, field margins.

• Green-spored parasol

  Chlorophyllum molybdites
  poisonous

  Gills white turning greyish green at maturity and spore print green on white paper; ring single, stem not mottled. A species of lawns in warm regions, rare in France but reported in the south; responsible for violent gastroenteritis.

Foraging tips

Pick only large specimens with a sliding double ring and a mottled stem, and leave the fibrous, tough stem behind. Take a spore print on white paper at the slightest doubt (white in the parasol). Cook thoroughly; the caps keep poorly and should be eaten the same day.

Model reliability

Reliability for this species: moderate.

Also in season

• Chanterelle
• Cep (penny bun)
• Field mushroom
• Horn of plenty
• Winter chanterelle
• Hedgehog mushroom

Where mushrooms are fruiting this week · All species