About this site

Liberty Caps is published by the team behind Dutch-Smart, a smartshop in the Netherlands. We say this first because it matters for how you read the rest. This site carries no product links and no advertising: nothing Dutch-Smart sells belongs next to a wild mushroom that is illegal to pick in the UK and the Netherlands, and that has deadly lookalikes.

Why the site exists

Search results for the liberty cap are a mix of picking forums, shop pages and sellers of illegal mushrooms. Very little of it gives the two facts that matter most: the species is easy to confuse with mushrooms that destroy the liver or kidneys, and picking it to keep is a criminal offence in Britain and the Netherlands. We wanted one place that explains the species the way a field guide would, with sources and dates, and is plain about those risks.

This is not a foraging guide. It does not say where to find liberty caps, how to pick, dry or store them, or how much to take.

How the entries are made

• Descriptions of the species and its lookalikes follow published mycological descriptions and the British reference site First Nature, with links on each page.
• Chemistry and case reports come from peer-reviewed journals, linked to PubMed.
• Legal statements come from the text of the law on legislation.gov.uk, the Dutch Staatsblad and the Irish Statute Book, with GOV.UK, FRANK and Jellinek as explanation. Each legal page gives the date it was checked.
• Claims we could not verify have been left out.
• We make no medical or health claims of any kind, and publish no testimonials or reviews.

The plate on the home page is a generated illustration made for this site in the style of a botanical drawing. It is not a photograph of a specimen and must not be used to identify one. Every page shows when it was last updated. If something here is out of date or wrong, Dutch-Smart's customer service can pass it on to us.

Who is behind the shop

Dutch-Smart is a Dutch smartshop that ships from the Netherlands and sells only to adults.