It was not the usual thing found in London. Certainly not in the Queen’s private 40-acre garden at Buckingham Palace. But there it was in all its red, white-flecked glory: Amanita muscaria, commonly known as fly amanita, fly agaric or simply fly mushroom.
Presenter of television show
The Queen’s Garden Alan Titmarsh told The Sun tabloid he was surprised to happen upon the toadstool. Presumably the spores were wafted in by winds or transported there along with some planting material, mulch or compost rather than having been planted intentionally. Apart from being an ancient and effective fly control, hence the every day names,
Amanita muscaria is highly hallucinogenic.
Not so it’s New World variant, however. A less spectacular yellow to cream flecked with white it lacks the hallucinogenic properties of the Old World form. Like it, though it is common to birch and pinewoods.
A fascinating study by the late Richard Evans Schultes, professor of natural science and director of the Botanical Museum at Harvard University, revealed that the use of this mushroom as an orgiastic and shamanistic inebriant among male members of several primitive tribes was discovered in western and extreme northeastern Siberia in 1730.
Partaking of
Amanita muscaria may result in conditions similar to excess use of alcohol – something unavailable to these people until more recent times. They might relax in happiness, sing and dance before falling into a deep sleep. “Religious fervour often accompanies the inebriation,” says Dr. Schultes. On the other hand there might also be “twitching, trembling, slight convulsions, numbness of the limbs, and a feeling of ease characterized by happiness, a desire to sing and dance, coloured visions, and macropsia (seeing things greatly enlarged).”
A peculiar and to modern eyes revolting practice took advantage of the fact that the active ingredient that produces these effects, muscimole and other compounds such as muscazone, pass through the body unaltered. So the tribesmen drank each other’s urine to obtain their highs. One shudders to think how they discovered this.
However, in the past ceremonial urine drinking was practiced in the Indian subcontinent. Brought there by Aryan invader thousands of years ago and mention in the Vedas, or hymns, as the mysterious narcotic
soma. Some ethnobotanists suggest that soma was indeed A. muscaria, the natural hallucinogenic chemical excreted unchanged from the body.
Tempting as it may be to imagine participation in high places, it is just not so. “For the avoidance of doubt, fungi from the garden are not used in the palace kitchens, a Buckingham Palace spokesman told London based tabloid
The Sun. Which is just as well as other amanitas include the notorious death cap and destroying angel mushroom. These are believed to be responsible for over 90 percent of all deaths from mushroom poisoning.
Truly it is said that there are old mushroom collectors and bold mushroom collectors but there are no old, bold collectors.
