Mushroom Mumblings ft. Amanita Muscaria var. Muscaria

Common Name: Fly Agaric

Have you ever heard of a toadstool? If I asked you to think of poisonous mushrooms, would a toadstool pop into your head as one of the examples? Well, no need to fear, for a toadstool is just what we’re talking about! Welcome to the wonderful, wonderful world of fly agarics! 

Fly agarics are the first kind of mushroom that people might think about when using the term ‘toadstool.’ Fly agarics have that bright red mushroom cap with small white warts on them, and they are scattered throughout the media. But, in truth, the term ‘toadstool’ is unscientific and refers to any inedible mushroom. Basic. Boring. Too broad to talk about all the inedible mushrooms in one sitting, unless you would like to be sitting for a month (most of the 14 thousand known mushrooms are inedible to some degree). So, let’s move on to talking specifically about fly agarics. 

“Why are they called fly agarics?” Chloe Gabrielson ‘26 ever so thoughtfully asked. Well, that’s such a conveniently timed question, almost as if ever so desperately I craved a transition. In certain parts of Europe, particularly in Germanic and Slavic regions, powdered fly agarics were sprinkled into milk to kill the flies. What happens is that the flies would be attracted to the milk and drink it. Ibotenic acid, a substance from the helpful mushroom, would be lurking in the milk since it was dissolved from the mushroom. When the flies drink the milk, they become drowsy, collapse, and die. Also, the epithet of muscaria comes from Latin’s musca, which means “a fly.” However, you may not want to use this method against fruit flies, as some fruit flies are tolerant to ibotenic acid! The horror.

Anyways, as previously said, fly agarics have a bright red cap with small white warts on it. That might’ve been a partial lie. Whoops. It turns out that fly agarics have many different varieties. Amanita muscaria var. muscaria is the one with the bright red cap and white warts. As shown in the picture, the warts on the cap are rather small, but there are a lot. They can also be washed off in the rain. 

Other variations might have yellow, orange, peach, or even white caps. In North America, ours, Amanita muscaria var. flavivolvata, has warts that are initially yellow, but, as the mushroom ages, they turn white. Its cap color is similar to Amanita muscaria var. muscaria. Additionally, all variations of Amanita muscaria have a skirt-like ring. So, pop quiz, what’s wrong with the Amanita muscaria emoji, and will you design me a better one? 🍄

I hate this mushroom the most out of all the mushrooms I’ve written about so far, which isn’t saying much anyway. This mushroom is both poisonous, edible (?), and psychoactive. The perfect combination…?

For the psychoactive effects, I found a story (of suspicious reliability) that people, a long time ago, would eat fly agarics for winter solstice celebrations. Upon eating the fly agaric, they would then fall asleep and, reportedly, experience hallucinations similar to flying in a “spiritual sleigh.” Another suspicious post I found said that fly agarics can make you feel as if you are becoming bigger, an effect shown in Mario Bros. games when Mario gets bigger in size. Except that if you eat this mushroom, you will not grow in size.

In fact, you might get poisoned! Joyous. (Sarcasm here if you couldn’t tell)

This mushroom, luckily for anyone who decided to eat a suspiciously bright red mushroom, isn’t fatal! Most of the time, anyway. If you eat a lot, say fifteen, the likelihood of dying is higher. If it is the elderly or children who eat this mushroom, the likelihood of them dying is also higher. But it isn’t as fatal as the previous mushrooms I’ve written about. Some symptoms are dizziness, nausea, and headaches.

Something (for you all not) to note is that, if one were dedicated to eating this mushroom, they could double-boil it in acidic water, making it safe to eat. However, this doesn’t mean that you should do this in your house. That would be a bad idea. So bad that I might appear in your walls the very next day at 4:10:51 am. The horror.

Also, if you couldn’t tell, this mushroom did not bring me much joy to write about. I believe it is because it is not particularly pretty nor fatal, and the articles disagreed with each other.