Mushrooms don't just exist to get people high, of course; they have their own lives. And part of that life is reproduction. Like other fungi, mushrooms reproduce via spores, which travel the breeze to find a new place to grow.
But mushrooms often live in sheltered areas on forested floors, where the wind doesn't blow. To solve the problem of spreading their spores, some 'shrooms (including the hallucinogenic Amanita muscaria) create their own wind. To do this, the fungi increase the rate that water evaporates off of their surfaces, placing water vapor in the air immediately around them. This water vapor, along with the cool air created by evaporation, works to lift spores. Together, these two forces can lift the spores up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) above the mushroom, according to a presentation at the 2013 meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics.
In the “old world”, the psychoactive fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) has been closely associated with northern European and Asiatic shamans and their rituals. Researchers have documented its use or presumed use by numerous cultures throughout Europe and Asia. In Siberia, its use predates the crossing of the Bering Straits into North America.
Amanita muscaria is a member of the Basidiomycete group of fungi [6] and is the classic toadstool depicted in literature and art with a red or orange cap that is often mottled with white spots. When dry these specimens have an orange/brown colour but the mottled spotting is still clearly visible
Amanita muscaria is found on the ground in mixed forests throughout the northern hemisphere, where it forms mycorrhizal associations with both conifers and hardwoods. As a result of these associations, A. muscaria is often found fruiting in fairy rings around its host tree. Although the Fly Agaric can form mycorrhizas with a variety of tree species, its preferred hosts vary by geographical region. The mushrooms usually appear in the summer and fall, but may appear at other times in places with mild climates (such as California).
By virtually every measure, Amanita muscaria is not your average mushroom. From its color scheme, to its history, to its unusual growing process, it is one weird and beautiful little fungus. Muscaria continues to mature post harvest. Specifically, it possesses the capacity to “transform cap tissue into gills and spores, and reorient against gravity – [a process known as] negative geotropism.”
pre-Christian rituals practiced in northern Europe at the time of the winter solstice. The collection, preparation, and use of fly agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria) were central to many northern European and Asian peoples’ winter solstice celebrations and ceremonies.
In the days leading up to the winter solstice, the fly agaric mushroom appears under trees, mostly firs and spruces. The fly agaric mushroom’s cap is dark red to reddish-orange with creamy-white small patches dotting the cap in an irregular pattern.
In central Asia, shamans wore special garments to collect the fly agaric mushrooms. Their coats and pants were red with the collar and cuffs trimmed with white fur and topped off with black boots. The shaman collected the fly agaric mushrooms in a special sack. After collecting the mushrooms, the shaman would return to his village and enter the yurt (a portable tent dwelling) through the smoke hole on the roof
Siberian shamans used to bring gifts of hallucinogenic mushrooms to households each winter. Reindeer were the "spirit animals" of these shaman, and ingesting mushrooms might just convince a hallucinating tribe member that those animals could fly. Plus, Santa's red-and-white suit looks suspiciously like the colors of the mushroom species Amanita muscaria, which grows — wait for it — under evergreen trees.
In the Scandinavian Peninsula, the indigenous Sami people who resided in Northern Finland, had a longstanding tradition that persisted through the 19th century. the Sami people, “would wait in their houses on the Winter Solstice to be visited by shamans. These shamans would perform healing rituals using the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria, a red-and-white toadstool fungus that they considered holy. So holy, in fact, that the shamans dressed up like the mushrooms for their visit.”
During the ceremonial ritual, the shaman would consume and share the sacred mushrooms with the participants. The smoke hole was a gateway or portal into the spiritual world where the people would experience many visions. Among the Sami (Laplander) peoples, the hallucinations associated with ingestion of fly agaric gave the sensation of flying in a “spiritual sleigh” pulled by reindeer or horses (i.e., Santa in his sleigh journeying out into the night to give gifts).
The story goes that these shamans, “would act as conduits between the human and the spirit world,” and through the a. Muscaria would bring “gifts of introspection.” They would also leave as they arrived, on sleds pulled by reindeer. Between this, the red and white aesthetic, and the emphasis on gratitude, it’s hard not to draw Yuletide comparisons.
Through the 20th century, in literature and firsthand reports, there are descriptions of Amanita muscaria being used in shamanistic ritual; as currency;and as an explanation for Christianity.
During the Pleistocene, the use of fly agaric entered Alaska, spread out across North America, and eventually south into Mesoamerica. However, the use of the fly agaric mushroom fell by the wayside in the “new world” due to the availability of liberty cap mushrooms (Psilocybe spp.). Liberty caps became the preferred psychoactive fungi as they were more easily tolerated and produced more intense experiences.
According to research conducted at the University of Portsmouth, “The first published account of the effects of Amanita muscaria on man was made by von Strahlenburg (1730), a Swedish colonel who spent 12 years in Siberia as a prisoner of war.”
the psychoactive components of Amanita muscaria—ibotenic acid and muscimol—are far more unusual. There are only five plant species in the world, all of which are members of the agaric type, that contain these two particular amino acids.
Amanita muscaria can be (and has been) consumed in a variety of ways. Most remarkably, there are reports of the Koryak people in Siberia ingesting the urine of shamans who had eaten the mushroom. Ibotenic acid decarboxylates to muscimol in the process of digestion, and maintains the majority of its psychoactivity. The thinking was, in part, that this method would offer a safer, less toxic means for consuming the fungi.
a medium/common dose of a. Muscaria is approximately three medium caps, or between 5 and 10 grams. A strong dose ranges from 10 to 30 grams. The onset is slower than psilocybin, it can take up to three hours, and the total experience lasts between 5 and 10 hours depending on the dosage.
Warts are remnants of the universal veil, an external membrane that protects the developing mushroom. Immature Fly Agaric mushrooms still enclosed by the universal veil are white, egg-shaped, and known as “buttons.” As the mushroom matures, the expanding pileus breaks through the universal veil. There are a number of ways that the universal veil can fragment, but in the Fly Agaric it always breaks up into small, evenly spaced, bumpy warts. The warts can be easily brushed off of the cap, so they are sometimes not present on older specimens.
Underneath the pileus, A. muscaria forms white gills that are close together. These plates of tissue are perpendicular to the cap surface and radiate out from the central pileus. The gills produce basidiospores (sexual spores) and are designed to greatly increase the surface area on which spores are produced. Like other Amanita species, the gills are free and give a white spore print.
The white stipe, which holds the pileus and gills above the ground, is more or less equal in thickness but has a swollen base. Its texture is variable and can be smooth to shaggy. The most striking feature of the stipe is its skirt-like ring. A ring is formed when the partial veil – a membrane which protects the developing gills – separates from the edges of the pileus but remains attached to the stipe. In the Fly Agaric, the thick, white, circular membrane drapes down from its point of attachment near the top of the stipe much like a skirt would.
The stipe usually ends in a swollen base. One of the most important identifying features of A. muscaria is found on top of the enlarged base. The base always has concentric rings of tissue around the top edges. These rings are the remains of the lower half of the universal veil (the top half resulted in warts on the pileus). You can quickly tell whether your mushroom is A. muscaria by checking for the presence of warts, a skirt-like ring, and concentric shaggy zones on top of the base. Although many other Amanita species have each of those characteristics, the Fly Agaric is the only one with all three.