Fly Agaric - Amanita muscaria
Fly Agaric is common on Dun Coillich and the wider area.
Fly Agaric is thought to be so called because it has been used as a method of controlling flies. It is crushed and mixed with milk in a cup. The ibotenic acid in the fungus cays as a weak insecticide.
The bright red cap has white spots and is distinctive enough to be the iconic representation of a toadstool in literature and in children's stories. There is a yellow variety.
Fly Agaric contains various poisonous alkaloids and the psychoactive substance, muscimol.
Ibotenic acid is a neurotoxin.
The Koryak people of the Kamchatka Peninsula use Fly Agaric to get high. Much of the psychoactive substance passes through into the urine and so they have developed a culture in which urine is drunk in order to recycle the substance and enhance the effect.
It has been suggested that the Vikings also ate Fly Agaric before going into battle because it superseded the parts of the brain associated with feelings of fear. The condition of being Berserk has been attributed to Fly Agaric.
Although Fly Agaric is poisonous few deaths have been attributed to it.
It is boreal in distribution and has been accidentally introduced with pine to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand it is considered a pest. In the northern hemisphere it has micorrhizal relationships with birch and pines. In the Southern Hemisphere it has developed such relationships with Nothofagus and Eucalyptus, perhaps to the detriment of native fungi.