Nature Table - FIELD MUSHROOM(Agaricus campestris)

Over 3,000 species of fungi grow in this country and many of them are good to eat.

However, the only wild species commonly eaten by Irish people is the field mushroom. It has a white cap and salmon pink gills which turn dark brown as it matures. It is not the same species as the cultivated mushroom but it’s closely related and very similar. Field mushrooms grow in pastures which have been grazed by cattle, horses or sheep but have not had artificial fertilisers applied to them. They appear around now, in late summer and early autumn, in warm, damp weather. Natural manuring by horses seems to produce the best mushroom fields. Field mushrooms bear a superficial resemblance to Amanita verna, the Destroying Angel, a species which accounts for 95% of mushroom fatalities in Europe. However, the Destroying Angel grows in woodland.