This story comes to us via Kat Chow.
Kat is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory, an advanced reporting class in which students produce news stories and packages for local neighborhood and ethnic newspapers and online sites.
Last Wednesday (October 19, 2011), a My Green Lake reader spotted these mushrooms near the Greenlake Boathouse (7351 E Green Lake Dr N):
“I was standing on the cement path when I took the picture — the ‘shrooms were about a foot off the main path and very visible,” the reader wrote in an e-mail.
She thinks they’re amanita muscaria, the same type of hallucinogenic smurf-like mushrooms we think were spotted at Green Lake Park last fall.
We called the Poison Control Center (1-800-222-1222) to ask about amanita muscaria mushrooms – what happens if a child or animal ingests one?
We were told, first and foremost, that the only way to correctly identify mushrooms is to send a sample to the local mycologist.
But if we did have a set of amanita muscaria on our hands, we were told by the Poison Control Center, a child or animal would likely become sick from consuming the mushrooms – varying degrees of sickness depending on the child or animal’s size and the amount consumed. The best idea would be to immediately seek help by calling the local poison center.
If you’re set on learning more about mushrooms, the Green Lake Library (7364 E Green Lake Dr N) will be hosting On the Wild Side: A Mushroom Hunt Primer this coming Tuesday (October 25) from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Participants will learn about safely gathering wild mushrooms, preservation techniques, recipes and other “wild” things.
You can also contact one of Seattle’s mycological organizations, the Puget Sound Mycological Society. They’re dedicated to all things mushrooms, and have mushroom identification clinics Monday nights at the Center for Urban Horticulture.
Note: the poison control number listed (1-800-222-1222) is a national hotline that will direct you to a local center according to your phone’s area code.
