Pixdaus

Ooooh, I love this photo! When I was living in Germany I had a certain place in the woods where fly agaric grew like in this photo, on dark green moss. In my opinion, this is one of the prettiest mushrooms in the world. It is considered poisoneous but the poison is mostly destroyed by cooking. Folks in Eastern Europe eat it. I am big fan of mushrooms and have picked and consumed tons :-))

Awesome picture.

Fantastic shot of perfect specimens. I've never seen such beauties as these amanito muscaria. Interesting what you say hijo, that the deadly poison is mostly destroyed by cooking. You say 'mostly destroyed,' so there is still poison present!? Can you elaborate, as I am also a great fan of mushrooms.

There are many amanitas out there, close relative is amanita pantherina which looks similar but with a greyish-brown hat. Amanita was referred to as Soma, the divine mushroom of immortality in the Rig Veda (Richard Gordon Wasson). I have eaten some fresh young specimens out of curiosity, since I read that amanita muscaria was boiled and eaten in Eastern Europe. Taste was similar to green apples. At this time I had 2 young specimens and I did not notice any symptoms (I had read a lot about this mushroom before that's why I dared...). Amanita muscaria contains ibotenic acid which - during processing, esp. drying - transforms into muscimol, the main psychoactive compound. It also contains muscarine and muscazone which are irrelevant as poisons. Amanita poisoning resembles alcohol poisoning and is called Pantherina syndrome (auditory/visual distortions, loss of equilibrium, euphoria, nausea, low blood pressure, sweating, often followed by a retrograde amnesia). There are no reported fatalities though Wikipedia says, that there were 2 fatalities in North America. They must have eaten another amanita since the lethal dose is estimated at 1 g of Muscimol, which would be found in 100 grams of dried mushrooms or equally 1000 grams of fresh mushrooms. Since large grown specimen weigh in about 100 grams, you have to eat 10(!!) large mushrooms to (maybe)kill yourself. They might have consumed amanita phalloides or amanita virosa or verna, which are the most poisonous mushrooms and contain phallotoxins, virotaxins and amanitin which is highly liver toxic. Just 0.1 mg amanitin per kilogram of human weight (which can be in only 5 grams of fresh material)is considered lethal. Taking the weight of 1000 mg per grown specimen, you would get 20 mg of amanitin. With a body weight of 60 kg the lethal dose would be 6 mg!
Amanita muscaria has been used for hundreds if not thousands of years for religious and visionary purposes in particular, and as I mentioned earlier: the books I read did not report any fatalities.
Hope I did not make too many mistakes since I did not specialize in chemistry English (I am German).

And then there is magic mushroom ;-)
Thank you for all that information hijo.

Connie seems to be very interested in mind altering substances.

There are many amanitas out there, close relative is amanita pantherina which looks similar but with a greyish-brown hat. Amanita was referred to as Soma, the divine mushroom of immortality in the Rig Veda (Richard Gordon Wasson). I have eaten some fresh young specimens out of curiosity, since I read that amanita muscaria was boiled and eaten in Eastern Europe. Taste was similar to green apples. At this time I had 2 young specimens and I did not notice any symptoms (I had read a lot about this mushroom before that's why I dared...). Amanita muscaria contains ibotenic acid which - during processing, esp. drying - transforms into muscimol, the main psychoactive compound. It also contains muscarine and muscazone which are irrelevant as poisons. Amanita poisoning resembles alcohol poisoning and is called Pantherina syndrome (auditory/visual distortions, loss of equilibrium, euphoria, nausea, low blood pressure, sweating, often followed by a retrograde amnesia). There are no reported fatalities though Wikipedia says, that there were 2 fatalities in North America. They must have eaten another amanita since the lethal dose is estimated at 1 g of Muscimol, which would be found in 100 grams of dried mushrooms or equally 1000 grams of fresh mushrooms. Since large grown specimen weigh in about 100 grams, you have to eat 10(!!) large mushrooms to (maybe)kill yourself. They might have consumed amanita phalloides or amanita virosa or verna, which are the most poisonous mushrooms and contain phallotoxins, virotaxins and amanitin which is highly liver toxic. Just 0.1 mg amanitin per kilogram of human weight (which can be in only 5 grams of fresh material)is considered lethal. Taking the weight of 1000 mg per grown specimen, you would get 20 mg of amanitin. With a body weight of 60 kg the lethal dose would be 6 mg!
Amanita muscaria has been used for hundreds if not thousands of years for religious and visionary purposes in particular, and as I mentioned earlier: the books I read did not report any fatalities.
Hope I did not make too many mistakes since I did not specialize in chemistry English (I am German).

You are so welcome! Darn, this posted again! I have to be careful with the back and forward button...