Amanita muscaria
Description
Amanita muscaria is the most famous poisonous mushroom. The bright red cap and white spots make it probably the most well-known of all wild fungi in the world. As it expands, warts become more widely distributed and the cap color will show through. Its margin is striate and the close white gills are not attached to the stem. The stalk is white to off-white with a somewhat bulbous base. It is widespread and associated with various deciduous and coniferous trees.
Amanita muscaria contains a high quantity of alkaloids and its pharmacology is complex and not fully understood. The most relevant alkaloids are ibotenic acid, muscimol, muscarine, and muscazone.
Some people eat this mushroom because it can cause hallucinations and psychotic reactions, but special cooking steps are required, it can cause death if eaten raw.
The toxicity is characterized by such symptoms as vomiting, nausea, headache, dizziness, lacrimation, hallucinations, increased salivation, weakness, and low blood pressure. If the mushroom is consumed in large quantities and untimely medical assistance is provided, coma and death are possible.
Common names: Fly Agaric, Fly Amanita.
Mushroom Identification
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Cap
The cap is 7-20 cm in diameter, initially hemispherical, later convex-spread, flat-spread, with a thin, scarred edge. The surface of the cap is red, brick-red, yellow-red, red-orange, and covered with numerous white or yellowish-white flakes, sometimes the flakes can be completely washed away by rain. The hymenophore is lamellar.
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Gills
Has white, free, crowded gills that turn pale yellow with age.
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Stem
7-20 cm high, 1-4 cm in diameter, cylindrical, with a large bulbous thickening at the base, initially solid, later hollow, white. The ring is wide, white, and yellowish at the edge. The volva has grown and has the appearance of concentric black-scaly zones on a bulbous thickening.
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Flesh
The flesh is soft, white, and yellowish under the skin of the cap, without a pronounced smell. Red toadstool poisoning manifests itself after 30-40 minutes.
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Spores
Spores 9.5-10.5 * 7-8 μm, broadly oval, with a smooth surface.
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Spore Print
White.
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Odor and Taste
The taste is pleasantly sweet, the aroma is inconspicuous.
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Habitat
Grows in coniferous, deciduous, and mixed forests, in birch forests, singly and small groups. Prefer peaty soils in plains and hilly areas, acid oak forests and in natural forests on sandy soils.
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Season
July to November.
Look-Alikes
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There is a bright red cap, but no rings and no volva. It is very fragile.
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Rarely found in northern Europe. Its cap is bright orange with striped edges and yellow stems.
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The caps of some specimens are dark orange, but their stems and cap flesh always turn red when damaged.
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Has a brown cap and the rest is a deeper yellow, prefers young spruce trees in mountainous areas. It is poisonous.
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Very similar mushroom, but with a yellowish cap.
Amanita muscaria Effects
Ultimate Mushroom does not recommend collecting and eating this mushroom.
Amanita muscaria has a wide range of effects, from euphoria and ataxia (difficulty balancing) to sensory alterations, particularly alterations of hearing, taste, and perspective. It can also produce cholinergic symptoms, such as "profuse salivation and mild perspiration".
Typical doses start with one-half to a whole dried mushroom (1 – 5 g), with three being the more common dose (5 – 10 g). At medium to higher doses (10 – 30 g).
The main cognitive effects often include:
Looping
When an individual becomes stuck in a looping or repetitive behavior or thought pattern, such as experiencing the same moment over and over again.
Frame reduction
Using the example of modern films or cartoons, these run at 25 frames a second. The experience of frame reduction is as though your perception is limited to one frame per second or less.
Size distortions
As described in Alice in Wonderland, things seem smaller or larger.
Feelings of strength
A sense of feeling much stronger than you are.
Visionary dreams
A sensation of flying
The physiological effects include:
Loss of coordination: feeling drunk, falling over, not being able to respond suddenly to things.
Muscle twitching: random muscle twitches at varying degrees.
Gastrointestinal distress, including nausea and vomiting.
It is also known to contain muscarine. It is present in the mushroom in such small amounts it is generally treated as insignificant. Despite this, it is important to be aware of its effects, especially when consuming fly amanita in higher doses. Specifically, symptoms of muscarine poisoning may include increased salivation, sweating, and lacrimation (crying). Symptoms can also include gastrointestinal distress, confusion, euphoria, loss of muscular coordination, decreased blood pressure, profuse sweating and chills, visual distortions, and a feeling of strength. Effects appear rapidly (within 15 minutes to two hours) and typically last for several hours.
Amanita muscaria Mythology
Was Jesus Christ a mushroom?
In 1970, philologist, archaeologist, and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar John Marco Allegro published his book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross in which he claimed that early Christian theology was derived from a fertility cult that consumed A. muscaria as their sacrament. Despite being widely criticized by academics and theologians alike, the book has been of interest to some ethnomycologists, with some of the ideas remaining popular. The ideas within the book have been paraphrased by some as “Jesus Christ was a mushroom!” For an excellent easy-to-read analysis, check out Andy Letcher’s book Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom.
Was Santa Claus a shaman?
A modern theory suggests that A. muscaria may also be closely associated with the origin story of Santa Claus. “An old gentleman dressed in a red and white costume… all the while being in a very merry mood and intoxicated”, loosely quoting Rogan Taylor from this radio show. The red and white suit, the climbing in and out of the chimney, the fact that reindeers love eating the mushrooms have all contributed to the very close similarity with the mushroom-consuming shamans of Siberia. Despite this nexus, our modern red and white Santa Claus image, while falsely attributed to Coca Cola, was created by artist Thomas Nast.
History
Similar to its English common name, the German, Fliegenpilz, Dutch Vliegenzwam, Swedish Röd flugsvamp, Danish Rød fluesvamp, Finnish punakärpässieni, Polish muchomór, Slovak muchotrávka and French Amanite tue-mouches, are derived from this property. The various common names come from its European use as an insecticide, sprinkled in milk. Fly agaric is still used in this manner in parts of eastern Europe such as Poland and Romania. This practice was first recorded by Albertus Magnus in his work De vegetabilibus sometime before 1256.
In 1753 Linnaeus described this mushroom in Volume Two of his Species Plantarum and named it Agaricus muscarius.
The specific epithet derives from Latin musca meaning "fly". It gained its current name in 1783 when placed in the genus Amanita by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and sanctioned by Elias Magnus Fries.
Varieties:
Amanita muscaria var. muscaria
Euro-Asian fly agaric - bright red fly agaric from northern Europe and Asia. Cap might be orange or yellow due to slow development of the purple pigment. Wide cap with white or yellow warts which are removed by rain.
Amanita muscaria var. flavivolvata
American fly agaric - red, with yellow to yellowish-white warts. It is found from southern Alaska down through the Rocky Mountains, through Central America, all the way to Andean Colombia.
Amanita muscaria var. guessowii
American fly agaric (yellow variant) - has a yellow to orange cap, with the centre more orange or perhaps even reddish orange. It is found most commonly in northeastern North America.
Amanita muscaria var. inzengae
Inzenga's fly agaric - it has a pale yellow to orange-yellow cap with yellowish warts and stem which may be tan.
Synonyms
Amanita muscaria var. muscaria (L.) Lam. 1783
Amanita circinnata Gray 1821
Venenarius muscarius (L.) Earle, 1909
Amanitaria muscaria (L.) E.-J. Gilbert, 1940
Amanita chrysoblema G.F. Atk., 1918
Amanita muscaria var. minor Gray
Agaricus nobilis Bolton
Video
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