Also called the “fly agaric” mushroom, this is one of the most famous mushrooms in the world, probably because of its distinct (and beautiful!) bright red cap with lovely white warts, and because it is alleged to have some kind of psychoactive properties. It is, in any event, poisonous. Amanita muscaria, deliver more than childish delight. They’re a species of the genus Amanita, which includes several “death angel” species that are lethal to human beings. This one, taken in sublethal doses, is perhaps the most recognizable hallucinogenic mushroom in the world. Some scholars think it is the divine Soma described in the Rig Veda of ancient India. Researchers believe it was used in religious ceremonies across Northeastern Asia and as far north as Siberia and Scandinavia. The mushroom is also known as “fly agaric,” apparently for its loopy and lethal effect on insects.
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"At last Medea arrived in her dragon car at Pirenian Corinth; here, in the earliest times, according to ancient tradition, our human bodies grew from the rain fed mushroom." Ovid METAMORPHOSES p.267
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