Amanita Phalloides

Perhaps the cause of more deaths from mushroom poisoning than any other species. In California, this common mushroom has proven especially fatal to Asian immigrants, who possibly mistake it for the paddy straw mushroom Volvariella volvacea, which grows abundantly in Southeast Asia. Amanita phalloides has a volva and white gills, with a grey-green cap that ranges from smokey metallic to tawny. Beginners should learn to identify the genus Amanita by the volva at the base, along with white gills and spores, and nobody should eat any Amanita until thoroughly confident of its identification. I found this specimen growing alongside a path near some children's swingsets in a Bay Area city park.