Poison Mushroom

A 256-bit Poison Mushroom compared to a 16-bit Poison Mushroom.

Poison Mushrooms are mushrooms similar in appearance to a Super Mushroom, except of a slightly darker shade. Touching it in any game reduces the character's size (similar to the Mini Mushroom) or reverts the effects of any power-ups, and can also take off a player's life if he is small. While in some games the Poison Mushroom looks similar to the Super Mushroom, sometimes the Poison Mushroom will have bad eyes and a purple cap with a skull symbol instead of spots, such as in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.

Poison Mushrooms are found in a number of 2D Mario games, as well as the Super Smash Bros. series, in which the character's size is reduced, but not the size of the character's attacks. The Poison Mushroom will also make the character lighter, allowing their opponents to easily knock them out of the stage.

In the Mario Party series
The Poison Mushroom is a common item that appears in the Mario Party series. The Poison Mushroom is usually depicted with a dark blue-purplish color, with an angry face on the mushroom. When a player recieves a Poison Mushroom, their numbers on the Dice Block are usually reduced.

The Poison Mushroom debuted in Mario Party 2. In the board map Mystery Land, a player has a chance to summon a "curse" on another character by a Shy Guy. The character that recieves the curse will have a Poison Mushroom placed on their head. When their next turn began, the high number they could get on the dice block is a three. The Poison Mushroom first appearance as an item was in Mario Party 3. In this game, a player could buy a Poison Mushroom from Baby Bowser's Item Shop for five coins, or win it in a Item Mini-game. When a player used a Poison Mushroom, their dice block was cut to only the numbers 1-3. The Poison Mushroom was very useful for landing on desired spaces that were only a few spaces away.

In Mario Party 4, the Poison Mushroom was replaced by the Mini Mushroom, which acted similar to the Poison Mushroom. When capsules were introduced in Mario Party 5, the Poison Mushroom was renamed the Cursed Mushroom, but still retained its original appearance. However, this time, the player would roll a 1-5 instead of a 1-3.