Amanita muscaria is not poisonous, on the contrary it tastes like chicken. It is also commonly known as fly agaric. Deathcap is actually Amanita phalloides, a different species.
A. Muscaria is actually both mildly poisonous and psychoactive.
http://www.erowid.org/plants/amanitas/
The more you know…
In extremely high doses, muscarine, the poisonous compound in Amanita Muscaria, can in fact cause death – usually from cardiac or respiratory failure. Typically there are only very small amounts of muscarine in A. Muscaria however.
Muscamol, the psychoactive compound in A. Muscaria, is not poisonous.
For an interesting tale of survival involving the Death Cap’s beautiful and deadly sister A. Virosa aka The Destroying Angel, check out this post on the Cornell Mushroom Blog.
Even too much water can kill you. Too much air can blow you away. I would quibble however on the feminine gender attribution, “sister”. “virosa” relates to a virus connotation and not some sort of toxic girl club. Spores are asexual and to my knowledge their development cycle is not dependent on sexuality.
If you bought it for someone attractive, would it be a Death Cap for Cutie?
I ate like a steak-load of supposed fly algaric, to little or no effect. Thay sey it eeven inkreesed my speling abblilitys.
That wouldn’t be terribly difficult to crochet, and as you’ve already pointed out, astoundingly cute.
My younger daughter would adore this. She’s a big 1-up mushroom fan.
Amanita Mushrooms are not the same as a Death Cap (or Death Angel) mushrooms. It would take a pretty poor macroscopic evaluation to confuse the two. Muscaria can be found in Fly Agaric mushrooms, but by drying them in a very particular way, the toxic effects can be nullified.
Despite the fact that Amanita Muscaria musrooms are psychoactive, most people who have taken them report that the experience is generally unpleasant, or at least not worth the nausia, fever, muscle seizing, or general feeling of insanity that presents with the ingestion of these particular species.
