Now is prime mushroom picking time and she regularly harvests mushrooms in fields around town to cook for herself.

This week she thought she had found some nice horse mushrooms near the Narooma tennis club at Bill Smyth Oval.

But upon closer inspection, the mushrooms had green gills underneath, instead of the normal brown gills.

So to be on the safe side, she decided against eating them and instead has attempted to identify them by looking them up online, so far without any success and their identity remains a mystery.

She did a spore print of the mushrooms, which also turned out green, and she took as a further warning against eating them. 

“My grandparents taught me to pick mushrooms and so far haven’t had any adverse reactions, but then again I am very cautious,” she said.

She would love to hear from anyone that can identify her mystery mushrooms and in the meantime issued warning for people not to pick and eat their own mushrooms unless they were trained to recognise the safe varieties.

UPDATE: WARNING – do not eat this mushroom! 

Narooma resident Theresa Van Der Heul has studied and researched mushrooms and fungi for more than 25 years, giving talks to various groups.

She said she was of the view that this mystery mushroom was in the Amanita austroviridis group of mushrooms, that includes Amanita chlorophyllum.

Other have said it could be the Chlorophyllum molybdites, which according to Wikipedia has the common names of false parasol, green-spored parasol and vomiter, is a widespread mushroom.

Interestingly while native to eastern North America and California, the mushroom is known to have spread to Australia.

“Highly poisonous and producing severe gastrointestinal symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea, it is commonly confused with the shaggy parasol or shaggy mane, and is the most commonly consumed poisonous mushroom in North America.

“Its large imposing appearance and similarity to the edible parasol mushroom, as well as its habit of growing in areas near human habitation, are reasons cited for this. The nature of the poisoning is predominantly gastrointestinal.”