Flammulina velutipes
On cold, wet days in December, indoor people prefer to stay home and stare gloomily out the window. Yet a few good mushroom hunters have better ideas. Those mushroom hunters go to the woods on precisely such days, mainly to hike, but also for the possibility they might find a few edible mushrooms. They are dedicated and educated mushroom hunters, hunters who can tell the differences between a deadly poisonous Galerina marginata and an edible Flammulina velutipes.
One can kill you.
The other is safe.
The thing is, the differences can be hard to notice at a glance, especially to the reckless eye. Even those experienced mushroom hunters, the ones who know the differences, examine each mushroom carefully before carrying home the edible Flammulina velutipes. Once more, in the kitchen, they look again carefully at each mushroom, because they understand clearly death is now watching.
And it’s a horrible death.