Estonian mushrooms - the European destroying angel

A new series of stamps is of mushrooms growing in Estonia. The first stamp in the series shows the deadly Amanita virosa, commonly known as the European destroying angel. It can easily be mixed up with other white mushrooms so it is the cause of quite frequent deaths. After eating a meal of the destroying angel the latent period is rather long, with the first symptoms, diarrhoea, nausea and stomach pains, occurring within five to twelve hours but they will then fade away for several hours and even days to return with vengeance, but by that time kidney and liver damage is well underway. The death angel often grows in Estonian spruce groves and groves mixed with spruce. It is totally white, with a pure white cap, initially egg-shaped and later convex or flat. The gills are white and the stem has a fragile ring on the stipe. The death angel is often mixed up with the common white mushroom, but one of their main differences is that its stipe has a ring and a volva, which the white mushroom does not have.