Editor’s note: Inspired and dampened by the
Bay Area’s unusually wet winter and early spring, we’re reprinting a column originally published in 2009. Horticulturist Robin North is no longer with
Fairyland; her replacement for the last six years has been Jackie Salas.
By
C.J. Hirschfield
After
the most recent rainstorm, two separate groups of people—one from Asia, the
other from Eastern Europe—recently knocked on our door at Fairyland and asked
if they could pick the mushrooms they’d spied inside our gates.
After
conferring with Robin North, our horticulturist, I decided to politely decline.
There are tons of types of mushrooms, and even Robin can’t be 100 percent sure
of the safety of all of the varieties that call Fairyland home. At least once
every year, there is a story about a Bay Area family rushed to the hospital
after someone misidentified a local fungus.
Ironically,
the cutest, most “Fairyland-like” mushroom that grows in our park is probably
the most poisonous: the Amanita. This deceptively lovely mushroom, which is red
with white spots, is responsible for approximately 95 percent of deaths from
mushroom poisoning. And darned if the huge mushroom in the middle of our park,
on which our “bubble elf” sits, isn’t Amanita-like in its coloring.
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| Fairyland's bubble elf, "Oswald," atop what appears to be an Amanita mushroom. |
