There are mushrooms that will cause liver damage if eaten. They
contain toxins called amatoxins. The mushrooms which contain these
toxins are mostly from the genera Amanita, Galerina, Lepiota, and
Conocybe. Amatoxin poisoning is responsible for over 95% of mushroom
poisoning fatalities. Death is usually in 7 to 10 days due to liver
failure.
The mushrooms that contain psilocybin and psilocin will not cause liver damage.
The cases related to psilocybin containing
mushrooms causing liver damage are cases where somebody misidentified
one of the deadly mushrooms mentioned above for one of the psilocybin
containing species. The most common mushroom for this is Galerina
marginalis. Sometimes the deadly Galerinas are mixed in with active
Psilocybe or Panaeolus species. There are photos documenting the two
growing side by side taken by Mushroom John (mjshroomer).
Other species such as Gymnopolis contain
Psilocin but also contain other substances with the potential to do
liver damage.Some of the other lesser species which contain
psilo(cybin)cin either come from genera which contain deadly relatives
or are so low in concentration the amount needed to achieve efect could
be also supplying a large dose of a toxin. In short the two main
active genera containing Psilo(cybin)cin, Paneolus and
Psilocybe do not exhibit any liver toxic properties.
Discuss at The Shroomery BB
