A big surprise when, following directions from a dog-walking friend, I found these fly agaric aka amanita muscaria in the woods. I've looked out for them for several autumn seasons.
I always thought them to be deadly poisonous but according to Wikipedia:
"Reports of human deaths resulting from its ingestion are extremely rare. After parboiling - which weakens its toxicity and breaks down the mushroom's psychoactive substances - it is eaten in several continents. There has been much speculation on possible traditional use of this mushroom as an intoxicant in the Middle East, Eurasia, North America, and Scandinavia."
I am definitely, definitely NOT about to try it! Its photogenic properties suffice for me.
This website http://honest-food.net/2011/12/24/eating-santas-shroom/
has slightly dubious information I think:
"widely known as the hallucinatory ‘shroom responsible for Alice’s trip into Wonderland and quite possibly our beloved images of a red-suited Santa Claus and his flying reindeer." @wordpixman
Aren't they gorgeous. My daughter had a few of these in her garden a few years ago. She dug them up just in case the kids got to them. She wasn't game to try them to see if they were poisonous either.
A great find and beautiful capture of the one and only fairy tale mushroom.
Ina + I did capture many toadstools last Thursday.
Thank you for you so nice wishes. Same to you.
What a very cool capture. Always a gift to come across some species you've been on the lookout for. ( Or, for which you have been on the look out, to avoid a dangling participle).
Amazing. I would avoid them too. They certainly have hallucogenic effects similar to LSD and are very dangerous. I didn't know that the effects were lost after cooking
In this case it concurs with several websites.
This website http://honest-food.net/2011/12/24/eating-santas-shroom/
has slightly dubious information I think:
"widely known as the hallucinatory ‘shroom responsible for Alice’s trip into Wonderland and quite possibly our beloved images of a red-suited Santa Claus and his flying reindeer."
@wordpixman
Ina + I did capture many toadstools last Thursday.
Thank you for you so nice wishes. Same to you.
I sometimes have trouble with that sentence construction - but read somewhere recently that it doesn't matter any more!!