What is the difference between edible, poisonous and hallucinogenic mushroom?

As there are many species of mushrooms – there are talks of 1.5 million – and no physical characteristic betrays the presence of poison or hallucinogenic substances, it is very difficult (and dangerous) to differentiate them in the “eyemeter”. To make matters worse, it is estimated that not even 5% of species are classified in the biological literature. This means that not even a very experienced mycologist (a specialist in fungi) can put a mushroom found in the middle of the forest in his mouth. Even if it looks a lot like an edible species, it’s good to be suspicious, after all, the same genus can have species that kill, make you high or simply fill your belly (see the example of the genus Amanita in the photos below). In the laboratory, there are two ways to identify a mushroom: morphological and biochemical analysis. The first is nothing more than comparing the characteristics of the species found with those already identified and cataloged in scientific books. For this, the shape, measurements and color of the mushroom are taken into account. Even if it looks like a known species, just in case it is analyzed by a trained biochemist to identify the presence of toxins (such as alpha-amanitin, found in Amanita phalloides) and hallucinogenic substances (such as psicillobin, from Psilocybe cubensis).