Amanita muscaria
Albertus Magnus recorded the mushroom in his work De vegetabilibus before 1256. He noted that people called it the fly mushroom because they powdered it and sprinkled it into milk to kill flies. This practice appeared across Germanic and Slavic speaking parts of Europe. Carl Linnaeus described the fungus from Småland in southern Sweden where he had lived as a child. He named it Agaricus muscarius in volume two of Species Plantarum published in 1753. The specific epithet derived from Latin musca meaning fly. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck placed the species in the genus Amanita in 1783. Elias Magnus Fries sanctioned this name in 1821. Modern rules now consider names valid back to the 1st of May 1753. Pierre Bulliard tried without success to replicate its fly-killing properties in 1784. He proposed a new binomial name Agaricus pseudo-aurantiacus due to this failure. One compound isolated from the fungus is 1,3-diolein which attracts insects.
Fly agaric fruiting bodies emerge from the soil looking like white eggs. After emerging from the ground the cap has an irregular distribution of small white to yellow pyramid-shaped warts. These are remnants of the universal veil that enclosed the entire mushroom when very young. Dissecting the mushroom at this stage reveals a characteristic yellowish layer of skin under the veil. As the fungus grows the red color appears through the broken veil and the warts become less prominent. They do not change in size but are reduced relative to the expanding skin area. The bright red cap ranges from five to twenty centimeters in diameter. Age and rain may cause the red color to fade and the warts to fall off. The free gills are white as is the spore print. The oval spores measure nine to thirteen micrometers by six point five to nine micrometers. They do not turn blue with the application of iodine. The stem is white and has a slightly brittle fibrous texture typical of many large mushrooms. At the base is a bulb that bears universal veil remnants in the form of two to four distinct rings or ruffs.
Amanita muscaria is native to conifer and deciduous woodlands throughout the temperate and boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It occurs alongside imported European trees near the West Coast of North America. A recent molecular study proposes it had an ancestral origin in the Siberian-Beringian region during the Tertiary period. Conveyed with pine seedlings it has been widely transported into the Southern Hemisphere including Australia New Zealand South Africa and South America. In New Zealand Tasmania and Victoria the species acts like a fungal weed forming new associations with southern beech. It appears to be spreading northwards with recent reports placing it near Port Macquarie on the New South Wales north coast. It was recorded under silver birch in Manjimup Western Australia in 2010. Commonly found throughout the great Southern region of western Australia it is regularly found growing on Pinus radiata. Ectomycorrhizal Amanita muscaria forms symbiotic relationships with many trees including pine oak spruce fir birch and cedar.
The major toxins involved in poisoning are muscimol and the related amino acid ibotenic acid. Muscimol is the product of the decarboxylation usually by drying of ibotenic acid. An active dose in adults is approximately six milligrams of muscimol or thirty to sixty milligrams of ibotenic acid. This amount is typically about what one cap contains. Spring and summer mushrooms have been reported to contain up to ten times more ibotenic acid and muscimol than autumn fruitings. Most toxins are detected in the cap of the fruit while moderate amounts exist in the base and the smallest amount in the stalk. Symptoms typically appear after around thirty to ninety minutes and peak within three hours. In cases of serious poisoning the mushroom causes delirium somewhat similar to anticholinergic poisoning characterized by bouts of marked agitation with confusion hallucinations and irritability followed by periods of central nervous system depression. Seizures and coma may also occur in severe poisonings. Recovery is complete within twelve to twenty-four hours in the majority of cases.
In 2024 Google searches for Amanita muscaria rose nearly two hundred percent from the previous year. An article published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine correlated this trend with sudden commercialization of products on the internet. While unscheduled in the United States the Food and Drug Administration lists Amanita mushrooms as a poison. They are not approved as ingredients in food. The FDA is currently evaluating their use in dietary supplements. A recent outbreak of poisonings and at least one death associated with products containing extracts sparked debates regarding regulatory status. This prompted an FDA ban of their use in food products in December 2024. These products often use misleading advertising making erroneous comparisons to psilocybin mushrooms or failing to disclose inclusion of Amanitas on packaging. Some draw comparisons to the controversial legal status of hemp-derived cannabinoids. Manufacturers must ensure their ingredients meet safety standards.
The red-and-white spotted toadstool appears in Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Garden of Earthly Delights on the left-hand panel. Two
of the most famous uses appear in the Mario franchise where Super Mushroom power-up items and platforms are based on fly agaric. The dancing mushroom sequence in the 1940 Disney film Fantasia also features prominently. Philip von Strahlenberg published accounts of his journeys to Siberia describing mukhomor use in English in 1736. Anglo-Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith commented on drinking urine of those who consumed the mushroom in his widely read 1762 novel Citizen of the World. Naturalist Mordecai Cubitt Cooke recorded distortions of perceived object size while intoxicated by the fungus. This observation formed the basis for effects described in the 1865 story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A hallucinogenic scarlet toadstool from Lappland is featured as a plot element in Charles Kingsley's 1866 novel Hereward the Wake. Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow describes the fungus as a relative of the poisonous Destroying angel.
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Common questions
When did Albertus Magnus first record the mushroom Amanita muscaria?
Albertus Magnus recorded the mushroom in his work De vegetabilibus before 1256. He noted that people called it the fly mushroom because they powdered it and sprinkled it into milk to kill flies.
Who named the fungus Agaricus muscarius and when was this published?
Carl Linnaeus described the fungus from Småland in southern Sweden where he had lived as a child. He named it Agaricus muscarius in volume two of Species Plantarum published in 1753.
What are the specific dimensions of the spores found in Amanita muscaria?
The oval spores measure nine to thirteen micrometers by six point five to nine micrometers. They do not turn blue with the application of iodine.
How many milligrams of ibotenic acid constitute an active dose for adults?
An active dose in adults is approximately thirty to sixty milligrams of ibotenic acid. This amount is typically about what one cap contains.
When did the FDA ban the use of Amanita mushrooms in food products?
This prompted an FDA ban of their use in food products in December 2024. The Food and Drug Administration lists Amanita mushrooms as a poison and they are not approved as ingredients in food.