A Harrop woman who mistakenly sold potentially toxic mushrooms at a market on Sunday is hoping others will learn from her mistake.
Naomi Legg describes herself as an amateur mushroom forager. She said she regularly walks through the woods identifying mushrooms using an app and a book.
The mushrooms in question were growing in wood chips in her garden, where she said they had been coming up around plants she had grown.
Legg thought they were chanterelles after noticing they smelled like apricots.
“When I had learned about chanterelles, people had said they smell like apricots. So of course, you know, I’m checking out these mushrooms, I’m checking out the gills. I’m smelling it. It smells like apricots. I’m like, ‘Oh, these must be chanterelles,’” said Legg.
“So I thought, ‘Well, that would be a gem,’ because chanterelles are a choice mushroom. So I thought, ‘Why don’t I bring these to the market, and that would be kind of like a celebration.’ I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
Legg brought the mushrooms to the market at the Harrop Community Hall on Sunday and sold about 13 trays to roughly 10 people.
After the market, someone contacted her about a Reddit post questioning the identification of the mushrooms.
Legg said she was shocked when she learned they could be Paxillus involutus, also known as brown roll-rim or common roll-rim mushrooms.
“It was stunning and startling. You think, like, ‘Oh my God,’ like, ‘I sold these to people. What do I do?’”
She immediately contacted the local Facebook and email communities, telling people who had purchased the mushrooms not to eat them and offering refunds.
Interior Health later issued a public health warning and asked Legg to provide contact information for people who had purchased the mushrooms.
Legg said she has been in contact with eight of the roughly 10 buyers and none have reported symptoms so far.
She also followed up with Interior Health to ask whether anyone had gone to hospital, and was told there had been no reports of illness at that point.
Looking back, Legg thinks she relied too heavily on one characteristic when identifying the mushrooms.
“I think I relied too much on one factor, which was the smell of the apricots,” she said.
“I should have been looking definitely more at gill formation and rim formation. Lesson learned.”
Legg said she will no longer sell mushrooms.
She also hopes the incident will help other people understand the risks involved in identifying wild mushrooms.
“I guess this is the cautionary tale. If you do sell mushrooms, make sure you know what you’re selling. And if you forage mushrooms and eat them, make sure you know what you’re getting, because I have learned that there are some really great lookalikes that are not good for us.”
Legg says the experience has been frightening, but she’s grateful no one has reported getting sick.
She also apologized to the community.
“I really apologize, and I really wanna just move forward in a good way and build trust.”
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