Talk:Spore print

While most poisonous mushrooms do not have a green spore print, 99.5% of mushroom species with green spores are poisonous.

I thought it was 99.3%. :-) Does anybody have a source on this statistic, or should we consider it folklore? Until we've got a source (such as a mycology textbook or study) this sentence should be less definite.

I believe it comes from a study cited/discussed under toxicity of mushrooms. Still, it is a statistic hard to ascribe any practical value to, since it really means 99.5% of the mushroom species looked at in the study (which may have been all or a majority of mushrooms). For any given mushroom-hunting individual, however, the number is likely to be 100% of the mushrooms they would encounter in their area. I say modify - Marshman 17:13, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

One rule of thumb for determining if a mushroom is poisonous may be a green or white spore print. While most poisonous mushrooms do not have a green or white spore print, all but a very few species of mushroom species with green spores are poisonous. Mycologists, however, would be quite are reluctant to identify any mushroom from its spore print alone allthough the spore print are one of many characteristics used in determination.

(Please forgive my poor english - English is not my native language.) This «rule of thumb» in the article is wrong and it is dangerous if it is not removed. A lot of deadly poisonus mushrooms do have white spores and some of them are allso quite common. As an example, a lot of the species within Amanita (Norwegian: Fluesopper) are deadly poisonus, f.ex. A. virósa (norwegian: hvit fluesopp), A. phalloídes (norwegian: grønn fluesopp, A. phanterína (norwegian: panterfluesopp) are all extremely poisonus and have caused death. There are allso many other examples of species that don't follow the above «rule of thumb» so I think there are no more bold and old mushroom-hunters left to argue against the «rule of thumb». I therefore removed the «rule of thumb» in the article and changed the text accordingly. --Jan Helge Salvesen 09:40, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)