Fungi Friday – Red mushrooms with white spots

I found some nice looking mushrooms at the campsite yesterday. Just perfect for Fungi Friday posting. I would not eat these they have hallucinogenic properties, if they are the ones that I think they are. There are a few different varieties that look similar to them though. These look a bit more orange than some of the similar looking mushrooms that I have seen.

I think these might be fly agaric, or Amanita muscaria but I’m not completely sure. Unless your really sure about a mushroom you should never eat it. There are some varieties that look very close to each other. Here’s a post about how you can safely eat the mushroom:

Eating Santas Shroom

The mushrooms in the post look like they are a deeper red than the ones that I have photographed here. The above post goes into more detail on how to recognize them and boil them for eating. I’m not sure if I’m adventurous enough to try that though.

These mushrooms I photographed might be just an older specimen or they could be some other mushroom like Amanita pantherina. I avoid all Amanita mushrooms - some like the destroying angel are deadly poisonous.

You can really see the height of the white spots in this photo:

Maybe this is why it is called the fly agaric, look at all the tiny flies all over it. I have also heard that the mushroom was used to kill houseflies by leaving bowls of the juice around for the flies to drown in.

Here’s an overview of where they were growing. There is a nice lake down through the trees but you can’t really see it. There was a lot of fog this morning but that went away towards the afternoon.

Here’s another nice view taken from a moving car while going over the bridge on the way to the campsite. This photo was altered by Google Photos.

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Posting under #fungifriday by @ewkaw

Thanks for reading! I always value your support and comments. The pictures were taken by me with my Galaxy S9+. Text and graphics copyright 10/19/2018 lightsplasher & litesplasher.