St George's mushroom Calocybe gambosa

Right now

When to look

From April to May. Favourable temperatures: 10 to 17 °C. It usually fruits 4 to 12 days after at least 12 mm of rain.

Where to look

Habitat

Meadows, woodland edges, fairy rings (the French ‘mousseron de printemps’)

Soil

Neutral to chalky soils (pH 6.3 to 7.8)

How to recognise it

Fleshy cap 4 to 12 cm, convex then irregularly lumpy, with a margin that stays inrolled for a long time, creamy white to putty or ochre-grey, without a pointed umbo. Gills white then cream, very crowded, narrow, emarginate to adnate, never decurrent, never turning pink or brown; spore print white. Stem short, stocky, solid, whitish, with no ring or cortina. Flesh thick and firm, with a strong smell of fresh flour when cut. Fruits in spring in grass, in lines or rings.

Dangerous look-alikes

• Deadly fibrecap

  Inocybe erubescens
  deadly

  Same season and same chalky woodland edges (lime, beech), but cap conical then umbonate and radially fibrillose, staining brick red when bruised and with age; gills white turning beige then pinkish brown (spore print brown) and smell faint, fruity, never mealy. It is rich in muscarine: symptoms come on quickly, between a quarter of an hour and an hour after the meal — profuse sweating, excessive salivation, watering eyes, constricted pupils, vomiting, diarrhoea, slowing of the heart — and respond to atropine. Deaths are rare and documented after large ingestions, but life is at risk without prompt treatment: we class it as ‘deadly’ as a precaution, whereas MycoDB lists it as ‘poisonous’.

• Livid pinkgill

  Entoloma sinuatum
  poisonous

  Its smell is also mealy: the criterion is therefore not the smell but the gills, which go from yellowish cream to a clear salmon pink, with a pink spore print. It fruits from late summer into autumn, under trees, and not in spring in grass. It causes violent, prolonged gastroenteritis, which can be fatal in children and in elderly or frail people.

• Ivory funnel

  Clitocybe dealbata
  deadly

  Its smell is also mealy: smell does not separate the two species, structure decides. It is much flimsier — cap only 1.5 to 6 cm, matt cream marbled with concentric pinkish-ochre zones, flesh thin, watery and soft, stem slender and fibrillose, gills adnate to slightly decurrent — where the St George's mushroom is thick and firm (cap 4 to 12 cm), with very crowded gills, emarginate to adnate, never decurrent. It occupies the same short grass and forms the same rings; it is rich in muscarine. Classed as deadly as a precaution: muscarine mainly causes sweating and salivation, but rare deaths from respiratory failure or heart-rhythm disturbance are described, especially in people with heart or lung conditions.

Foraging tips

Take only fleshy, firm specimens with a cap of at least 4 cm — size alone is not enough, the fool's funnel reaches 6 cm; it is the thickness and firmness of the flesh that settle it — and with white, very crowded gills that are never decurrent; discard any gathering whose gills tend towards pink or brown, that reddens when bruised, or whose flesh is thin and watery. The mealy smell proves nothing: the ivory funnel and the livid pinkgill have it too. Fragile flesh that keeps poorly: eat cooked within two days.

Model reliability

Reliability for this species: moderate.

Also in season

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

Where mushrooms are fruiting this week · All species