The magic of a mushroom.

Autumn’s warm colours are about to appear, the bronze, gold and yellows of the leafs are about to show in Autumn's nature collection. I will be looking out for one small piece of perfect fire-brigade red that will appear about now. The Fly Agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) is the iconic red with white spotted mushroom that you first saw as a child, depicted in books of Fairy Tales. Well what ever about the tales in the book the red and white mushroom does exist and is relatively easy to find especially at this time of year, October.

The toadstool or the Fly Agaric is commonly found near pine plantations, the mushroom is hallucinogenic and poisonous. It got its name because it was believed that mixing it with milk was used to kill flies.  In some quarters you may read that this was the mushroom taken by Viking warriors to throw them in to a mad rage and they were called Berserkers, but that story has been dismissed.

I know our Sunday walk (Oct 13th) should come across a mushroom or two as the weather is ideal for their growth.

PS
We came across them on the Archaeology walk on Sunday.