Showing posts with label fly agaric. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fly agaric. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 06, 2021

KIller

 A couple of mushrooms seen on the Lupin Falls trail. With visitors.

Amanita muscaria, Fly Amanita. With a fly.

And with another fly, and rove beetles roving about.

Amanita muscaria var. muscaria has the red cap. The yellowish capped variety is Amanita muscaria var. formosa. They both have the characteristic "warts" on the cap.

And they're both poisonous. The name, "fly amanita" and in Latin, "muscaria", possibly 
... comes from its historical usage as a fly killer. Small pieces of dried mushroom are placed in a bowl of milk. Flies are attracted to a chemical compound in the flesh of this mushroom that intoxicates them. They fall into the milk and drown, or die from the poisons they have consumed." (Common Mushrooms of the Northwest)
I wonder if the live mushroom, solid, makes the flies sick.

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Estos son dos hongos que encontré cerca de las cataratas Lupin. Son Amanita muscaria, var. formosa,el hongo llamado matamoscas. El primero viene con una mosca; el segundo lleva además unos escarabajos estafiliínidos.

Amanita muscaria var. muscaria tiene el sombrero rojo. El que tiene el sombrero amarillento es la Amanita muscaria var. formosa. Los dos hongos llevan las manchas características encima.

Y los dos son venenosos. El nombre, "matamoscas' y en latín, muscaria" ...
... se refieren a su uso histórico como matamoscas. Pequeños pedazos del hongo reseco se ponen en un recipiente con leche. Un compuesto químico en la carne de este hongo atrae a las moscas, y las emborracha. Se caen a la leche y se ahogan, o se mueren a causa del veneno que han ingerido." (de Hongos Comunes del Noroeste)
Me pregunto si el hongo vivo, no disuelto en leche, es capaz de dañarlas.


Friday, November 07, 2014

Looks good enough to eat!

It isn't. Don't try. It's the extremely poisonous fly agaric mushroom, Amanita muscaria, var. formosa.

15 caps will kill you. Fewer (but how many fewer?) will just make you crazy.

This is the common variant around here, with a yellow or orange cap. I have seen some of the deep red ones, up north in the Bella Coola valley. Very pretty; the mature mushroom caps were flat discs, as big as a cherry pie. A cherry pie with a sprinkling of sugary crumbles on the top.

Fly agarics are known for the unpredictability of their effects. ... (they) can range from nausea and twitching to drowsiness, cholinergic crisis-like effects (low blood pressure, sweating and salivation), auditory and visual distortions, mood changes, euphoria, relaxation, ataxia, and loss of equilibrium. ...
In cases of serious poisoning the mushroom causes delirium, ... characterised 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. (From Wikipedia)

They're still beautiful.


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