Funeral Bell

Safety first. The funeral bell (Galerina marginata, also called deadly skullcap or deadly galerina) can destroy the liver. Anyone who may have eaten it, or any wild mushroom they cannot account for, needs poison help at once: call Poison Help at 1-800-222-1222 (US), or your local poison centre or emergency number elsewhere, and do not wait for symptoms. [1] Serious symptoms may not start for 2 to 4 days, by which time the liver and other organs may already be badly damaged. [3] Call 911 for collapse, a seizure, or severe vomiting with confusion. See mushroom poisoning and urgent help and plant and mushroom poisoning. This page does not help anyone identify or gather mushrooms. Do not identify wild mushrooms from text, photos or apps. [1]

The short version. The funeral bell is not a food and not a supplement. It belongs on this site only as a warning. It contains amatoxins, the poison family of the death cap, and it is the kind of small brown mushroom that has been eaten by mistake for edible ones. [3] There is no simple antidote. Cooking, drying and freezing do not remove poisons from poisonous mushrooms. [1]

What it is

Galerina marginata is a wood-rotting mushroom. Wikidata lists it as a species of fungus. [5] Scientists now treat the old G. marginata name as a group (a "complex") of closely related species; in one 2021 study, the toxin-positive samples fell into two of those species, G. venenata and G. castaneipes. [3] The practical point for readers is that a published toxin figure for "funeral bell" may belong to a close relative, and the toxic group as a whole should be treated as dangerous.

The toxin and how it acts

The toxins are amatoxins, mainly alpha-amanitin and beta-amanitin in the samples studied. [3] Alpha-amanitin is a heat-stable ring-shaped chain of amino acids (a bicyclic octapeptide) that binds to an enzyme every cell needs to make proteins (RNA polymerase II), so cells stop working and die. [2][6] Cells of the gut lining, the liver and the kidney tubules take it up readily, which is why those organs are hit. [2] It is easily absorbed from the gut. [2] For the full toxicology of amatoxins, see the death cap page; this page keeps that part short.

What the poisoning looks like

Doctors describe four stages after an amatoxin mushroom is eaten. [2]

1. Quiet phase. No symptoms, typically for 6 to 24 hours, occasionally shorter or up to about 40 hours. [2]
2. Stomach and gut phase. Vomiting, watery diarrhoea and stomach pain, typically for 1 to 2 days. [2]
3. Apparent improvement. The person may seem to be recovering, yet liver damage can keep growing; liver tests start to rise within about 16 to 48 hours. [2] Feeling better does not mean being safe.
4. Liver and multi-organ failure. Within about 2 to 7 days; death, when it happens, is generally 4 to 16 days after eating. [2]

Real cases for this group show the pattern. In Sweden a 32-year-old woman who ate sautéed G. marginata, believing they were honey mushrooms, reached hospital 17 hours later with vomiting, diarrhoea and signs of liver damage, and recovered after nine days in hospital. [3] In Japan a six-year-old boy who ate soup probably made with a related Galerina was admitted after about 36 hours, his liver failed by 72 hours, and he left hospital after 15 days; the adults who shared the soup had nausea and diarrhoea and recovered. [3] In China 13 co-workers who ate a canteen mushroom dish likely containing a related Galerina needed 10 days in hospital for liver and kidney damage. [3] Three Galerina poisonings with one death were reported in North America in 2011, with few details. [3] These are individual reported cases and cannot tell us how often poisoning happens.

Treatment (as described by clinicians)

There is no universally accepted antidote or standard treatment for amatoxin poisoning. [2] Care is mainly intensive supportive hospital care: fluids, salts, blood clotting and blood sugar, with the standard treatment for acute liver failure. [2] Some doctors use medicines to limit absorption or protect the liver, such as activated charcoal, silibinin or N-acetylcysteine, but evidence is limited and the choice is for the hospital team and poison centre. [2][6] A liver transplant is sometimes needed. [6] Do not try home remedies, and do not make someone vomit unless a poison centre tells you to. Keep any leftover mushroom or a sample for the clinicians if the poison centre asks. [1]

How much toxin: what was measured

Lab figures are in the next section. In short, dried specimens of the two toxic species in one study held around 1 to 1.6 mg of alpha-amanitin per gram dry weight, and the authors worked out that about 10 fruiting bodies of a toxic species could poison a 20 kg child, using a lethal dose of 0.1 mg per kg body weight. [3] A clinical review gives the same 0.1 mg per kg figure for adults and says children are particularly sensitive. [2] Those are scientific estimates, not a safe-amount guide: there is no safe amount to eat.

Mix-ups reported in poisoning cases

Published reports describe Galerina eaten by mistake for honey mushrooms (see honey mushroom) and, in the Japanese family case, for wild enoki. [3] The authors also say serious illness has followed confusion with other edible mushrooms. [3] Reading that list is not a way to avoid the mistake. Small brown wild mushrooms are hard even for experienced gatherers. [1] The only safe approach is not to eat wild mushrooms that an expert has not identified in person; cultivated mushrooms bought from shops are covered in cooking edible mushrooms safely.

Lab data and chemistry

This section is about what laboratories have measured. It does not suggest any benefit; it documents a poison. Wikidata (the open knowledge base behind the LOTUS natural-products project) lists 4 compounds reported in Galerina marginata, all amatoxins; none of the statements points to a paper, so they are identities only. [5] A listing means "reported in at least one study of this species", not "present in every specimen".

A. What the laboratory literature reports in this mushroom

B. Measured values

USDA FoodData Central has no entry for this mushroom (it is not a food). [5]

The wet-weight figures were calculated by the authors assuming fresh mushrooms are 88% water. [3]

C. What the numbers do and do not mean

• Toxin content varies between species in the group, between specimens and between places; two relatives in one study differed significantly (1.58 vs 0.99 mg/g). [3] One figure cannot say how dangerous a particular mushroom is.


• The values are for dried museum specimens; the fresh-weight numbers are estimates. [3]


• Toxins in the funeral bell group are in the same range as the death cap in the comparison quoted by the authors, so a small mushroom is not a small risk. [3]


• A toxin number is a research measurement. It is not a way to judge whether a wild mushroom is safe.


• No measured value exists here for nutrients, ergothioneine, beta-glucan or vitamin D; they are not relevant to a poisonous mushroom.