Cow lips are mushrooms, which are popularly referred to as "dunky". Scientifically, they are called thin sows (Paxillus involutus). Cow lips are mushrooms that were previously considered conditionally edible. However, after several cases of poisoning and more detailed studies, they were classified as poisonous.
Description
The mushroom of the cow lip has a hat up to 10 cm in diameter. At a young age, it is olive-brown, shallow and slightly convex, and then ocher-brown, flattened, dry, smooth, matte with the edges bent down and a funnel in the center. In rainy weather, the hat is very slippery. The plates are brown, frequent and easily detachable. When pressed, they turn brown. The leg of the mushroom is solid, cylindrical. Its diameter is 1-2 cm, and its height is 3-6 cm. The flesh of the macromycete is juicy, dense, sour in taste, soft, without a pronounced smell. At first it has a light yellow color, but later acquires a rusty-brown or yellow-brown hue. The spores are smooth, short-ellipsoidal. Their powder is buffy-brown.
Habitat
Cow lips are mushrooms that grow in clusters in deciduous and coniferous forests. They can be found under oaks, beeches, aspen, birch, in the thickets of shrubs, in gardens, near swamps, in clearings and in old anthills. Macromycete prefers small forests, where there is enough light. The cow lip bears fruit in the period May-November. The mushroom loves high humidity.
Doubles
Cow lips are mushrooms that can be confused with some forms of mushrooms. However, the latter is characterized by the release of milky juice at the site of fractures and sections. The thin pig is also similar to the orange-red (tuberous) cobweb. This macromycete is deadly poisonous. Its toxins destroy the kidneys and liver. The orange-red cobweb grows in groups in moist spruce massifs, in blueberries or in dense sphagnum. This macromycete differs from a thin pig in a pronounced dark brown color, a hat with a small pointed tubercle, and also rare and thick plates. On the leg there are transverse yellow bands.
Eating
Not so long ago, mushrooms of cow lips belonged to conditionally edible low-value macromycetes. But after cases of severe poisoning by pigs (often fatal) became more frequent abroad and in the Russian Federation, additional studies were conducted. They showed that cow lips contain toxins that are not destroyed by heat treatment. One of them is muscarine, a toxin similar to the poison of red mushroom. In humans, it causes diarrhea, vomiting, increased sweating and salivation, slowing the heart rate. In sows, there is not much poison, but with the regular use of these mushrooms and the accumulation of large doses of toxin in the body, pulmonary edema and respiratory failure are possible.
In addition, thin sows contain antigen, to which the human body reacts with the formation of agglutinins - antibodies that, when a certain threshold is exceeded, can destroy red blood cells. An interesting feature is that poisoning does not occur immediately. It all depends on the individual characteristics of a particular organism. Some people can be poisoned only after consuming cow lips for many years, while others are more sensitive to them, and therefore poisoning occurs quickly.