The small, brown, wood-loving mushroom that kills psilocybin foragers — species profile, spore print, and why it is misidentified.
Galerina marginata is a small, wood-decomposing mushroom in the family Hymenogastraceae. English speakers know it as the "funeral bell," "deadly Galerina," or "autumn skullcap." It grows on rotting logs, wood chips, and mulch across North America, Europe, and Asia. It fruits from summer through late fall in most temperate zones.
The species used to be split into several names — G. autumnalis, G. venenata, G. unicolor — but molecular work published by Gulden and colleagues in Mycologia (2005) collapsed them into a single species. The practical meaning: all of those old names refer to the same toxic mushroom.
Galerina marginata produces alpha-amanitin. This peptide binds RNA polymerase II inside your liver cells and shuts down protein synthesis. Cells die slowly, over days. That delay is what makes amatoxin poisoning so deadly — by the time you feel sick enough to seek help, damage is well underway.
For the full clinical picture, see our amanitin poisoning guide.
The cap is 1.5 to 4 centimetres wide. It starts convex and flattens with age. Colour is honey-brown to tawny-cinnamon when moist, fading to a paler ochre when dry (mushroom hunters call this "hygrophanous" — the colour changes as it loses water).
Gills are adnate (attached to the stem), close, and rust-brown in mature caps because they carry rust-brown spores. Young caps show paler yellow gills before spore drop.
Take a cap, remove the stem, and set the cap gill-side-down on white paper (or half on white, half on black) for 2–4 hours. Galerina marginata drops a rusty-brown spore print. Psilocybe species drop a purple-black to dark violet-brown spore print. This is the single most useful field test, and it is the reason the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) tells foragers never to eat any small brown mushroom whose spore print they have not taken.
Galerina marginata has a thin, membranous ring on the upper stem, often dusted rust-brown from falling spores. The ring can wear off in older specimens or wash away in rain — its absence is not a reason to trust the identification.
Stem is 2 to 6 centimetres long, brown, and often fibrous with a slightly darker base. It does not bruise blue. This matters: the wood- loving Psilocybe species most often confused with Galerina (P. cyanescens, P. subaeruginosa) bruise blue on the stem within minutes of handling.
Almost exclusively on rotting hardwood or conifer wood — logs, stumps, buried wood, and wood-chip mulch in gardens and parks. Fruits in clusters of two to twenty caps, close together. This is precisely the habitat wood-loving Psilocybe species prefer, which is why the two get picked side by side.
Small, brown, ringed, cluster-forming wood-mushrooms are the exact profile of several psilocybin species — especially Psilocybe cyanescens in the Pacific Northwest and Psilocybe subaeruginosa in Australia and New Zealand. The features overlap enough that experienced foragers have died. See:
| Feature | Galerina marginata | Psilocybe (wood-loving group) |
|---|---|---|
| Spore print | Rusty brown | Purple-black to violet-brown |
| Blueing when handled | None | Blue-green bruise within minutes on stem or cut |
| Ring on stem | Present, thin, may wear off | Often absent; when present is a fragile veil remnant |
| Gill colour (mature) | Rust-brown | Dark purple-brown to nearly black |
| Substrate | Rotting wood, chips, mulch | Same — direct overlap |
| Cluster habit | Yes, tight clumps | Yes, tight clumps |
| Cap surface (moist) | Smooth, hygrophanous, tawny | Smooth, hygrophanous, can be caramel to chestnut |
Galerina marginata is one of the most-reported causes of amatoxin poisoning in North America. A case series by Mullins and Horowitz in Veterinary and Human Toxicology (2000) documented a family in Michigan misidentifying Galerina as a "magic mushroom" — one adult required a liver transplant. Reports in the American Association of Poison Control Centers annual data continue to record cases every year. Fatal cases in dogs that chewed wood-mulch Galerina are documented by university veterinary schools — the mushroom is not fussy about who it kills.
If your interest is in psilocybin therapy or a legal psilocybin experience, wild foraging is not the safer route — even where it is technically decriminalized. Oregon's Measure 109 service centers and Colorado's Prop 122 healing centers exist precisely so adults can access dose-verified, professionally identified psilocybin without picking mushrooms. See:
Extremely. It contains alpha-amanitin at concentrations comparable to the death cap. One or two medium caps can kill an adult if untreated. Even a small taste can be enough to require hospital care. There is no safe amount.
No. Amatoxins are heat-stable, freeze-stable, and dry-stable. They survive cooking, drying, tea preparation, and long-term storage. This is the specific property that makes amatoxin mushrooms so dangerous — every preparation method that works for other risky foods fails here.
No. It does not bruise blue. Wood-loving Psilocybe species (P. cyanescens, P. subaeruginosa) bruise blue-green on the stem within a few minutes of firm handling or cutting. But blueing alone is not a safe positive test — some other, non-psilocybin mushrooms also blue, and the absence of blueing does not confirm a cap is safe. Only a spore print gives you the diagnostic answer.
No. All Psilocybe species drop a purple-brown to purple-black spore print. A rusty spore print is a hard rule-out for the whole genus. This is why NAMA and every serious mycology extension teach the spore print as the single most reliable test.
Call the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at 888-426-4435 or go directly to an emergency vet. Amatoxin poisoning in dogs follows the same biphasic pattern and is fatal without aggressive treatment. Bring a sample of the mushroom if possible.
Cut the stem off, place the cap gill-side-down on white paper (with a strip of black paper underneath in case the spores are pale), cover with a bowl to keep it humid, and leave for 2–4 hours. The colour that drops is the diagnostic answer. Any small brown mushroom that drops a rusty print is a hard "do not eat."
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