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Last updated 3 October 2026
In the damp oak, beech, and chestnut forests of the Appennines, Laccaria amethystina glows like a small jewel against the brown leaf litter.
The English call it the amethyst deceiver, “deceiver” because it fades to pale buff as it ages, potentially confusing it with other Laccaria species.
But catch it young, especially after autumn rains, and there’s no deception: just that unmistakable, almost surreal purple color that seems too vivid to be natural.
It’s beautiful. And it comes with an important caveat that every forager should understand.
A Mushroom With a Toxic Talent
Laccaria amethystina possesses a remarkable and somewhat disturbing ability: it bioaccumulates arsenic from the soil.
This mushroom is extraordinarily efficient at absorbing and concentrating arsenic in its tissues, far more so than most other fungi or plants.
We’re not talking about producing arsenic; the mushroom doesn’t create this toxic element.
Rather, it acts like a biological pump, extracting arsenic that exists in the soil and concentrating it in the fruiting body.
In contaminated soils, this mushroom can accumulate dangerous concentrations.
This is where Tuscany’s agricultural history becomes relevant to modern foraging.
The Persistent Legacy of Historical Agriculture
Throughout the 19th and much of the 20th century, arsenic-based compounds were widely used in agriculture across Europe, including Italy.
Arsenic was a common ingredient in pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides.
Vineyards, orchards, and croplands were regularly treated with these arsenical compounds to control pests and diseases.
The practice was eventually banned as the health risks became undeniable, but here’s the problem: arsenic doesn’t decompose or break down in soil.
Unlike organic pesticides that degrade over time, arsenic is an element: it persists indefinitely.
Former agricultural lands, even those that haven’t seen arsenical treatments in fifty or seventy years, can still harbor elevated arsenic levels in the topsoil.
This is particularly relevant in Tuscany, where:
- Former vineyard sites are now often returned to woodland or converted to other uses
- Abandoned orchards have been reclaimed by forest
- Old agricultural terraces in the mountains were once intensively cultivated and treated
When I’m scouting locations for my guided hikes, I pay attention to stone walls, terracing patterns, and local historical knowledge.
These indicate former agricultural use, valuable information for understanding the landscape’s ecology and potential contamination history.
Where and When to Find Them
Laccaria amethystina is mycorrhizal, forming partnerships primarily with broadleaf trees, particularly oaks, beeches, and chestnuts in our region.
Unlike specialists like porcini, this mushroom is somewhat generalist in its partnerships.
I’ve found them in mixed deciduous forests throughout the Apuan Alps and Appennino Pistoiese, from around 400 to 1200 meters elevation.
The season runs from late summer through autumn (August-November), with peak fruiting following sustained rainfall in September and October.
They prefer acidic soils and are often found in the same general areas where you might encounter other acid-loving species.
Look for them in mossy areas, near rotting wood, or emerging from leaf litter in mature forest.
One habit makes the species easy to relearn every autumn: Laccaria amethystina is a coloniser of bare ground. In our beech and chestnut woods it lines the cut banks of forest tracks, the lips of drainage ditches and the churned soil left where a tree has come down, anywhere the mineral layer has been exposed and then covered again by a thin skin of moss. Those places hold moisture longer than the open forest floor, so after a wet week in October there are often dozens of them along a single fifty-metre stretch of path.
Avoid collecting from:
- Former vineyard sites or near old wine-producing areas
- Abandoned orchards or areas with fruit trees showing signs of age
- Proximity to old agricultural terraces, stone walls indicating cultivation, or anywhere locals mention former farming
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The Mycorrhizal Partnership and Soil Preference
Like Lactarius deliciosus and Boletus edulis, Laccaria amethystina cannot survive without its tree partners.
The mycorrhizal relationship is obligate: no trees, no mushrooms.
The fungus colonizes the fine roots of its host trees, extending their effective absorption area and helping them access nutrients and water from a larger soil volume.
In return, the tree provides the fungus with carbohydrates from photosynthesis.
Laccaria Amethystina Look-alikes
Before trusting the colour, I’d rule out two small lilac mushrooms that grow in the same woods, and both are toxic. Lilac fibrecaps contain muscarine, and small amounts of it have been found in Mycena pura too.
- Lilac fibrecaps (traditionally recorded as Inocybe geophylla var. lilacina). Silkier, with an ochre-tinged bump at the centre of the cap and gills that turn brown as they age. Laccaria’s gills are thick and widely spaced, as violet as the cap, on a tough, fibrous stem.
- Mycena pura (lilac bonnet). Often pinkish-lilac, with a smooth, hollow stem and a distinct radish smell when you crush it.
Muscarine poisoning can start within half an hour, sometimes later, with sweating, watering eyes and heavy salivation, and it means a trip to hospital. With any lilac mushroom, I’d look at the gills and smell the cap before deciding anything.
The Honest Assessment
Here’s my professional recommendation as a guide: admire it, photograph it, appreciate its role in the ecosystem, and leave it in the forest.
That purple gleam in the autumn forest, that’s enough.
Are you a beginner?
If you’re just beginning to explore mushroom foraging, Geoff Dann’s Edible Mushrooms is the field guide I recommend to all my clients. It’s an excellent starting point for learning safe identification. Read my full review here.
Want to learn in the field? Join me for a hands-on mushroom hunting experience ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
Come mushroom hunting in the Tuscan Apennines
A private day in the woods between Pistoia and Florence: identification in the field, the habitats each species needs, and time to photograph what you find. September to November, when the ground is actually producing.
Attention!
While the content of this blog post is aimed at providing you with information as accurate as possible, it should be treated as what it is: simply a blog post on the internet.
Mushroom identification should only be performed by experts, as a mistake can lead to dire consequences. Attempting to identify a mushroom on your own, without prior experience, based solely on the content of this blog post is strongly discouraged.