Helen Brown

The power of mushrooms to kill or cure

Certain fungi are poison not only to animals but the trees that surround them, while others have valuable medicinal properties and can flag important changes to the ecosystem

The Death cap (Amanita phalloides), the most poisonous known mushroom. [Getty Images]

  • Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind: In Pursuit of Remarkable Mushrooms

    Richard Fortey

    William Collins, pp. 336, £25

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