 Cortinarius mushrooms are often highly colourful . Moser " made the first successful steps " towards studying the pigments in these mushrooms , hoping to find criteria for separating taxa , and some of his PhD students studied these elements in depth . Cooperating with biochemists , he produced important work on the biosynthesis of pigments . Moser was also interested in the toxicity of the Agaricales , and was — with his students — involved with research on the toxin <unk> . 
