Tricholoma venenatum
CUP-A-022573
Atkinson received these mushrooms by mail after seven people were poisoned by them.
It is a nondescript mushroom of northeastern North America: a dull whitish thing with a white spore print. A new species of Tricholoma, it needed a name: Atkinson's species epithet means "poisonous."
Would you like to see it in color? Here it is.
"I am sending you a set of agarics of unusual interest and importance, for they are the ones that made seven people very ill in Rochester, Mich., on August 21. Violent and hemorrhagic vomiting, diarrhoea, sweating, and some cardiac disturbance were the symptoms, lasting several hours and coming on one hour after eating even of minute quantities. Some of the women are still suffering from intestinal disturbance. None that ate escaped; none died."
--Letter from Dr. O.E. Fischer (Detroit, MI) to G.F. Atkinson, August 1908.