This is probabely the most dangerous mushroom in our woods beside of his cousins, the snow white coloured Amanita Verna and Amanita Virosa. All 3 look the same in external aspect.

Amanita Toxic mushrooms contain Alpha Amanitin as a toxic substance. This toxin is also found in a very dangerous small brown mushroom called Gallerina Marginata. Toxins in mushrooms are divided in 2 very distinctive classes, Alcaloids and Cyclic Proteins. The human body is indeed build up with chained proteins only and is not able to digest cyclic proteins. Those proteins have a ring structure and the body has no mechanisms that are able to open that ring structure and thus make a chained open ended protein out of it. The result is that the kidneys will recognize this as an undigested protein and send it back to the liver to rework. The liver can't open it and gives it back to the kidneys to eliminate through the urine. This endless loop wil cause the death of both organs on a short time base and the intoxicated person dies in a horrible and painful way.

Alcaloids are substances that can cause various effects. Muscarin, found in Amanita Muscaria and some other mushrooms
is a hallucinogenous drug that can cause nerves paralizing and death.
Some others like Orelanin, found in Cortinarius Orelanus and Gyromitrin
found in Gyromitra and Morchella are accumulating in the body and cause a long time based destruction of the kidneys.

Many mushrooms are seldom and people seek for them because of their hallucinogenous drug called Psylocibin, among them Psyllocibe Mexicana and Panaeolus Papilionacaeus.

But, the most common intoxication and death are still today caused by Alpha Amanitin and the most often eaten with Gallerina Marginata. Cyclic proteins are today commonly found in many moistures like Peniciliums and are used to produce anti-biotics. Cyclic Proteins are indeed able to close gates to different cells of the body and thus closing the entrance to viruses and causing the death by starvation of the virus.
Those Cyclosporins and Cephalosporins are very powerfull medications to fight many diseases in today's known medecine.

Another very dangerous moisture is Cordiceps Purpurea which is the moisture or black rot of the wheed grains. Today all is done to avoid this sickness of grains and thus get the danger of intoxication reduced to a minimum. That mushroom was a major cause of death in ancient times when people made their own bread and did not know about his problem. The moisture enters today in many medications and it's toxins are very effective against many diseases. Cordiceps Purpurea contains Lyseric Acid, or what the Hippies in the sixties once called simply "ACID", or LSD 25 (Lyseric Acid Dyethilamide).

Lethal amounts differ from every type of toxin. A piece as big as a thumbnail will be the limit with this ones. On Amanita Muscaria, the limit is the same to live a nice muscarin trip. Other mushrooms are not recommended to eat at all. Morchellas and Gyromitras are classified among the dangerous ones and depite of this, french kitchen keeps those as a traditional indredient of different plates. The later lose as much as 90% of there poison by drying the mushroom and that's why those mushrooms are most found dried on the market. They are easy to rehydrate and are as tasty as before. In dried state it is quite impossible to reach the critical accumulation of Gyromitrin in a body during a lifetime. Depite of this, it is a reason to eat as low amounts as possible or to avoid them completely.

So, try to keep this slight green bad smelling bastard shown here in mind. He has a smell of old honey and bee wax. His white cousins are the same in aspect, are white all over, also under the hat and some have no particular smell.

If you are not sure about your harvest, allways ask advice to a specialist. Lists of those people are issued at your local intoxication labaratory services.