 Botany
Cap is bright yellow to orange or orange red, covered on the top with powdery scales, 10 to 18 cm in diameters. Gills are white. Stem is 10 to 19 cm high, white or tinged with yellow in color and is often scaly. Volva is white and prominent and surrounds the swollen end of the stem, but soon tears off.
Distribution
Reported to grow in Baguio.
Constituents
- Contains muscarine, with a melting point of 100 D.
- Also yields amanitine.
- It contains biologically active agents, two of which are known to be psychoactive - muscimol and ibotenic acid.
Properties
- Tobacco-like in odor, tasteless, and akaline.
- Muscarine prolongs the diastolic action of the heart and acts as a vasomotor and respiratory depressant.
- Popular primarily for its hallucinogenic properties.
Uses
Folkloric
- Employed as remedy for epilepsy with little effect.
- Used in the treatment of nightsweats of phthisis.
Others
- Extract of the deadly poisonous mushroom is used to poison flies in some countries.
- Used as an intoxicant and entheogen by Siberian tribes.
- Associated with Shamanic and magical rituals.
- Identified as the "Soma" of the ancient Rig Veda (4000 BC) .
Toxicity
• Although generally considered poisonous, deaths are extremely rare.
• Poisoning is typically accidental, in young children or people mistaking it for edible species, or people ingesting it for the hallucinogenic experience. The white spots may be washed away by heavy rain and can then be mistaken for the edible specie, A. caesarea.
• The toxic dose in adults is approximately 6 mg muscimol or 30-60 mg ibotenic acid, the amount typically found in one cap of A. muscaria. Fifteen caps haver been approximated to deliver a fatal dose; however, with region-to-region and season-to-season variations, it is an uncertain approximation.
• Toxicity effects range are wide ranging: nausea, drowsiness, low blood pressure, sweating, salivation, euphoria, ataxia, visual and auditory distortions, loss of equilibrium. More serious poisoning effects are delirium, agitation, confusion, hallucinations and CNS depression, even seizures and coma.
• Emergent treatment, depending on time-factor, consists of gastric decontamination, gastric lavage, activated charcoal, benzodiazepines for control of agitation, overactivity and seizures.
Availability
Wild-crafted. |
