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Written by Michael S. Smith
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Wednesday, 24 December 1997 |
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Page 2 of 6
Eventually you will find that the mushrooms will continue growing under a certain stand of trees for the season and you can return there once or twice a week. Interestingly I have found many Amanita growing in one spot one season, but upon my return the next they have not returned. Therefore I recommend that you allow the mushrooms to sporinate before harvesting and that you also leave a few to follow their normal cycle of birth and return to the earth. One year I collected so many from the local golf course that the next year was almost devoid of them. You should have seen me walking around with a bag collecting mushrooms as golfers, who often mistook the unopened caps for their golf balls, looked on in wonderment.
Once you get near the mushrooms sit among them for a few minutes if possible, they are a wonderful sight to behold and have a very mysterious resonance about them. Admire them for a little bit before they become sacrificial victims. Most of the time you will find the mushrooms in their many different stages of growth, from just raising their round heads above the ground to total decomposition. The ones you really want to look for are those that are dried on the stalk as these are said, by some contemporary commentators and the native Siberians, to be the most potent in regards to their effects. These are also the most difficult specimens to find simply because the weather conditions have to be in such a state to allow the mushroom to dry without rotting. The second most desirable state to collect is those that are in the process of sporination. These can be recognized by their nearly horizontal parasol, upturning parasol, or tears in the striations along the edge of the cap. The least desirable specimens are those which some might consider the most desirable. They are the ones that are still in the process of expanding and are not in sporination, but which are the most divine looking in shape and color. If at all possible leave these behind and come back in a day or two to see if they are still around. It is said that the smaller ones are the most potent as well, but remember, get them after their sporination. When removing the Amanita I recommend first giving the cap a few good taps to knock out spores for future harvests and then cutting off the cap at the uppermost part of the stem. If in sporination the stem should be ripe with fallen spores that will eventually make their way back into the ground.
The most common enemies to the Amanita are gnat larvae, snails, squirrels, deer, lawn mowers, and possibly polluted rain. Gnat larvae are probably the worst enemies, drilling up from the stem and into the cap, often devouring the gills and inner meat while avoiding the immediate cap, possibly due to its chemical makeup. Snails don't do much damage, but will often leave a hole or two through the stem and cap as well as some dried slime. Squirrels will usually just take a bit or two, leaving a majority of the cap, but a deer will bite the whole cap off, leaving just a stem poking out of the ground. The worst fate is to return a day or two later after waiting for full sporination to find the mushrooms ground up by a mower or trampled underfoot by the neighborhood children. The last possible enemy to Amanita growth would appear to be acidified rain. From my own experience I've noticed that Amanita populations are almost non-existent in the Eastern suburbs of our largest metropolitan area, while to the West they grow in incredible abundance. My only explanation is that the top soil in the East has become polluted by the airborne particles carried out of the city and dropped by rain in the Eastern suburbs, thereby inhibiting the production of mycelia.
Preparation and Ingestion
The most important aspect of Amanita muscaria preparation lies in the drying and/or of heating of the mushroom. What these two processes do is convert the less powerful Ibotenic acid into the highly psychopharmacological chemical muscimol through decarboxylation. If this is not done then the potency as an inebriant is lessened. There are a number of ways to do this.
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