Mushrooms

dustin0352 · Post by **dustin0352** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:31 pm

Never seen these fellas growing in FL before, and am actually quite surprised to see any mushrooms growing as it has been cool. Our boss got paranoid that kids would eat them thinking they were magic ones and had us weed eat them all down. Anyone know the name?

ThePackrat · Post by **ThePackrat** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:48 pm

Thats a "Fly Agaric" or Amanita Muscaria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria

bett · Post by **bett** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:50 pm

It's some species of Amanita, most likely A. muscaria though the large one is less red than usual. They're poisonous to eat, though it probably won't kill an adult (just make you very sick). Most of the species will make you ill at the least, while others are bad enough to kill you. People die in Finland every now and then (last time it was a family of Russian tourists) because they mistake species in this genus for something edible. Some of the most poisonous are the solid white ones (or other light colored) lacking the trademark specks of the more common red and orange species. This makes the young ones often look like edible species of mushroom.
At least the ones you have there are easy enough to identify. They're very nice to look at, but if there's danger of children eating them then it's probably best to remove them like you did. Some more might pop up over the weeks. If there's local children around it might be a good idea to tell them to not touch them (not sure why kids would eat random mushrooms but oh well). I don't think they'll cause any harm to you through skin contact, so you should be fine.

charlpic · Post by **charlpic** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 5:33 am

I would second the Amanita muscaria id. I often find light orange ones on my grandma's land.

You won't get any fun mush-trip out of those, the stomach-ache it brings doesn't worth it AT ALL. The harm comes from digesting them so you don't need to worry about touching them. The rain can wash the flakes and make them look like edible mushroom so I would get rid of any mushroom near the spot you found them.

I absolutely second bett about removing them for the children's sake.

dustin0352 · Post by **dustin0352** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 10:17 am

Thanks for all the info all! When I said KIDS, I should have been alittle more specific. I meant teenagers looking to get a high. Its sad but these teens will do anything to get a buzz. So that is what my boss was worried about, not atctual children.

There ended up being so many out along this road we just brought the bat-wing tractor out and mowed the whole road. Some of em where HUGE this one here was almost the size of my head and had to weigh over a pound.

PapaBearJay · Post by **PapaBearJay** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 2:39 pm

Both of those look like Amanita muscaria, though the one on the right, moreso. The one on the left could have been a result of sexual reproduction between two hyphae of different Amanita sp. mycelia.

How close to each other did you find them Dustin?

Less possibly, the one on the left could be a decaying yellow Amanita sp., though neither looks like they've unveiled their spores yet.

That last one though, it's done for, and the spores are probably long gone, you should probably plan on seeing more along the roadside come, after some heavy rains.