Important: Safety Warning
This page offers rules for telling edible mushrooms from poisonous ones. No such rules are reliable, and these identifications predate modern mycology. Deadly species closely resemble edible ones, and mistakes are regularly fatal. Never eat a wild mushroom on the strength of this text.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Champignon
(Marasmius oreades). This has long been known as an esculent mushroom, and it is greatly esteemed throughout France. It is sometimes described in books as the Fairy-ring Mushroom, but several others have an equal claim to that title. It may be readily distinguished from the closely allied poisonous species, M. urens, with which it sometimes grows, in having the stem quite bare, and in its less crowded gills.