A. muscariae

Patients may appear to be intoxicated, presenting nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. They have color hallucinations, slow pulse, hypotension, irritability, and incoordination. Children may develop fever and seizures. Death from A. muscaria is rare, usually occurring only in severely poisoned young children, older patients, or persons with serious chronic illnesses. A. pantherina caused... 

Muscarine is found in tiny amounts, usually under 20 pg/g, in other agaric genera, too, such as Amanita, Boletus, Hygrocybe, Lactarius, Mycena, and Russula. It was by the small amounts of muscarine present in A. muscaria, 90 pg/g, that the toxin was detected and identified (and got its name) but muscarine in A. muscaria usually does not account for the symptoms that occur after ingestion of this fungus, which are produced by muscimol and its precursor ibotenic acid. 

Abdominal examination may reveal ileus, which is typical of poisoning with antimuscarinic, opioid, and sedative drugs. Hyperactive bowel sounds, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea are common in poisoning with organophosphates, iron, arsenic, theophylline, A phalloides, and A muscaria. 

If true, this would be sensational. It is not true. A. muscaria is the hallucinogenic mushroom of the Siberian tribesmen in their rites. It is not used in Mexico. 

After the Puharich statement had appeared, I gave Bill a photograph in color of A. muscaria, and he returned to Juquila and Yaitepec. An informant named Benigno recognized the mushroom at once and identified the stage of development that it had reached, as would be expected of a countryman intimately familiar with his environment. He said the people in his area do not take that kind of mushroom. 

Puharich in The Magic Mushroom as well as in his most recent book is unduly impressed with the occurrence of A. muscaria. Wherever the species of trees occur with which it lives in mycorrhizal relationship, it is common. It is one of the commonest of fungi in North America and Eurasia. Puharich quotes at length as an authority Victor Reko, a notorious forceur, not to be confused with his cousin. Bias Pablo Reko. 

Puharich does not identify the spot where he met his (sic> bl71jo.r, though it seems probable that he did not get beyond the mestizo town of Juquila. He does not explain how he put his question to them, how he explained over a double linguistic barrier what A. Muscaria looked like. He does not explain what precautions he took to avoid a leading question that would almost certainly produce his desired answer, return... 

Contraindications Before harvesting these or any mushrooms for ingestion one should establish positive identification. Several closely related amanita species are extremely toxic. These include A. pantherina, A. virosa, A. verna, and A. phalloides (destroying angel). Large amounts of A. muscaria can also be fatal. Three mushrooms is the absolute maximum recommended. 

Victor Reko gave the names "Amanita mexicana and "A. muscaria variant mexicana for the mushrooms described in his book. This embellishment of his cousin s views was significant in again attracting attention to a mushroom as teonandcatl. 

The psychoactive principles in A. muscaria pass through the human organism in such a way that they are still psychoactive when they emerge in urine. The resulting sequential inebriation quite fascinated the explorers and travelers who first witnessed Fly Agaric use in Siberia. The custom there was described as delicately as anywhere by the English novelist Oliver Goldsmith in 1762 ... 

In 1972 Bayer and Kneifel isolated (98) a pale blue compound from A. muscaria containing vanadium, which they named amavadine. They proposed (98,99) that it consisted of a complex of AT-hydroxyimino-a,a -dipropionic acid with in a 2 1 ratio. From a comparison of the EPR spectra of segments of frozen mushrooms with those of vanadyl complexes of various amino acids, it was concluded (100,101) that this proposal was not very likely. However, Krauss et al. (102) synthesized amavadine and compared its EPR properties with the complex extracted from the mushroom and concluded that it was the same. Others were unable to reproduce the synthesis (103), although models analogous to amavadine were reported. The synthesis of the ligand N-hydroxy-a,a -iminodipropionic acid, and related compounds was, however, later confirmed (104-106). The stereochemistry and total synthesis of the vanadium compound of A. muscaria has now been elucidated (107). 

The above observations were made in Europe, so there may be differences in specimens harvested in North America. The lethal dosage of A. muscaria in Europe, as estimated in the quoted article, is something like five kilograms of fresh material, far more than anyone would be likely to ingest. Here is a hallucinogenic dosage recommendation from an anonymous Xeroxed article mailed to me by a correspondent ... 

These are the introductory words in a communication on the structural characterisation of amavadin by Garner and co-workers in 1999. 1 The discovery of high amounts of vanadium in A muscaria dates back to 1931 [ 1 in an article Sur la repartition du molybdene dans la nature [on the distribution of molybdenum in nature], the comparatively high amounts of vanadium found in A. muscaria (3.3 mg kg ) and garlic (0.8 mg kg ) are noted. The vanadium compound present in Amanita muscaria, known as fly agaric or toadstool, was first isolated and characterised in 1972 by Bayer from mushrooms collected in the Black Forest (Germany), and named amavadin ... 

Amanita pantheria and A. muscaria. Insecticidal effects. CNS actions, and taste-enhancing qualities similar to glutamate. 

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