“It was like a scene from ‘Alice and Wonderland,’ ” said David Fischer, who wrote “Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America.” The mushrooms are providing good meals for people like Margaret Primack of Newton, Massachusetts, who collected 60 to 70 pounds this summer. But because some mushrooms are poisonous, they also present a danger for people who can’t tell the difference between the tasty and the toxic. The Northern New England Poison Center has seen an increase in mushroom poisoning cases in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, with 97 in August and September, nearly double the figure from the same time last year. “People need to have respect for mushrooms,” said Karen Simone, the poison center’s director. “They don’t understand that this can be dangerous.”
