The information in this episode is meant for interest only. All of the fungi mentioned in this episode can cause injury or death. We do not support the ingestion or use of any of these mushrooms, or any known toxic plants for that matter. And therefore, the MCP and I cannot be held responsible for any injury caused by their misuse.
Please be responsible, and if you think you've ingested something poisonous, call your local emergency services immediately. Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so, the mysterious and unsolved. Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity, and it has gripped millions of people throughout the ages. I am one of those people.
My name is Hallie, and this is the morbid curiosity podcast. Previously on this podcast, we've talked about toxic plants, which often contain organic compounds called alkaloids that produce many strong physiological effects when ingested by humans, such as convulsions, paralysis, hallucinations, and death. We've also discussed plants that contain cardiac glycosides, organic compounds that increase the force and rate of heart contractions. We've also discussed hallucinogenic plants, plants that cause intense mental and sensory experiences.
Because of all these effects, toxic plants have been utilized for pharmacological and ritual purposes from very early in human history. Some toxic plants have been studied over the years to create medicine, while many more have a history of being used as poisons. While I've mostly discussed plants, I've mentioned a mushroom or two as well. Mushrooms occupy a special place in human culture.
We both love them and deeply distrust them, even fear them. They can be downright delicious, deadly poisonous, sugary sweet, or absolutely grotesque. They also hold great symbolism and feature in many myths and legends from cultures across the world. Most of the fear surrounding mushrooms comes from misidentification and misunderstanding.
With a little knowledge, hopefully we can transform the fear into curiosity and a healthy respect for the power of mushrooms. The terms mushrooms and fungi are often used interchangeably to describe these organisms, but these terms actually have different meanings. Mushrooms are the fruit of a fungus, similar to how an apple is the fruit of a tree, and just like trees, only a small proportion of fungi produce fruit. Far more exist without producing mushrooms, which are also called fruiting bodies.
Fungi are in their own kingdom in the genetic sense, similar to animals and plants. They are among the most diverse organisms on Earth, with an estimated 2.2 to 3.8 million species, only 148,000 of which have been identified and catalogued. Fungi grow in a wide range of habitats, including extreme environments, such as deserts, the deep sea, and areas with high radiation. While they share some morphological, biochemical, and genetic features with plants and other organisms like bacteria, fungi have some very unique features that clearly separate them from the other kingdoms.
These include unique cells called hyphae, which are tubular, elongated, and thread-like. These cells have multiple nuclei. Most animal and plant cells have only one nucleus. The walls of these hyphae are also unique, as they are made of chitin and glucan.
Chitin is the same material that the exoskeletons of arthropods, like millipedes, shrimps, barnacles, and horseshoe crabs, are made of. The cell walls also contain glucan, which is found in plant cell walls. Around 14,000 species of fungi are known to produce mushrooms. Only about 2,000 of those are safe to eat, and about 650 have possible therapeutic uses.
The rest are more or less toxic, causing everything from stomach upset to death. It took hundreds of years to discover which was which. Physical evidence of mushroom use among humans in prehistory is scarce, one case that strongly suggests humans were using mushrooms is that of Uzzi the Iceman, a mummified human corpse from between 3,350 and 3,100 BCE, who we discussed in detail in another episode in 2022. Uzzi carried several types of fungi with him, but there was no evidence that he consumed any of it.
The earliest evidence of human consumption of mushrooms comes from El Miron Cave in Cantabria, Spain. An international research team led by Robert Power of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany used optical and scanning electron microscopy to explore microremains in the dental calculus of several individuals from the Paleolithic era found in the cave. Dental calculus is a buildup of bacteria between teeth that hardens into plaque. Within that plaque, the team found the microscopic remains of mushrooms.
Cave paintings of mushrooms also exist, one example being at the Selva Pascuala rock shelter, also in Spain, dating to the Neolithic era between 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. Paintings on the cave wall, featuring a bull and a multitude of what appeared to be mushrooms, were compared to local species of mushrooms by mycologists, and it's hypothesized that the mushrooms in the paintings closely match Selosive Hispanica, a hallucinogenic mushroom, which often grows in cow manure. Many species of fruiting fungi have played an important role in human society since prehistoric times. Some mushrooms were valued for their mind-altering effects and were used in religious rituals, while others were prized for simply tasting delicious.
Mushrooms were depicted on the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs, temples, and in papyrus texts. They were called Sons of Gods or Plants of Immortality, and it was the exclusive privilege of pharaohs and royalty to consume them. Pyramid texts and ancient scholars also mention medicinal uses of mushrooms. There are also several examples of what appear to be mushrooms in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic signs.
The ancient Greeks are documented as using several psychoactive substances, including opium poppy and cannabis, during religious rituals and medical procedures. One of these substances may have been rye ergot, a type of hard fungal mass that grows on rye grains. Fun fact, ergotism, or ergot poisoning, is the earliest documented form of fungal poisoning, with references found on an Assyrian tablet dating to 600 BCE, more on ergot after the outbreak. The Vikings are said to have used aminida muscaria mushrooms to provoke their Berserker rages before battle.
I covered aminida muscaria in Plants That Thrill, and since then, an article has been published in the Journal of Ethnobotany that suggests that it's more likely the Vikings consumed hyosyamous niger, also known as henbane. The effects of henbane poisoning are more consistent with a rage, causing hallucinations and restlessness than the symptoms of aminida muscaria, which usually causes mild relaxation, but can sometimes cause delirium. However, as there's not much to prove or disprove either theory, we can't say for sure which was being used, or if Berserker rages were even real. We do know that aminida muscaria has been found in Viking graves, but the purpose remains unknown.
There's substantial archaeological evidence for the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms within ancient Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Aztecs, whose empire flourished in Mexico between 1300 and 1521. Texts by Spanish writers during the Spanish conquest of Mexico also point out the importance of these mushrooms for divination and other religious rituals, called Tejuna Nakathol by the Aztecs, the Silo-Siber mushroom was particularly valued, but many other hallucinogens were also used, including Peyote, Salvia and Datura, all of which we've discussed in previous plant episodes. Unfortunately, Spanish missionaries saw the mushroom called as a threat to Christian salvation, believing that the devil spoke through the mushrooms. The Aztec rituals were quickly forbidden, and people were severely punished if caught using them.
The fear of mushrooms held by the Spanish missionaries was very common in medieval Europe. This is likely due to the fear of being poisoned, as mushroom varieties were not well documented nor easily identified, and some extremely toxic mushrooms commonly grow in Europe, such as death caps and destroying angels, more on them after the outbreak. Mushrooms were so feared that they became associated with witchcraft and evil. Naturally occurring rings of mushrooms were seen as evil places where witches had gathered, or fairy creatures had done some mischief.
In truth, these rings formed due to a circular-shaped fungus that grows beneath the soil, and sprouts fruiting bodies at its edges. Even during famines, most Europeans would rather eat grass than chance being poisoned by eating a mushroom. This suspicion lasted even after the medieval period. While there were people who collected and ate mushrooms, usually cunning folk or village healers, physicians remained suspicious, most advised avoiding mushrooms, calling them the excrement of the earth and bundles of putrefaction.
Because mushrooms often grow amongst rot and darkness and were often poisonous, they were seen by most as filthy and treacherous. This hostility towards mushrooms may have reflected discomfort with fungi in general. Fungi posed a threat to the new scientific theories. In these new and increasingly rigid systems of taxonomy, mushrooms remained stubbornly difficult to classify.
They also didn't grow consistently and required specific conditions that were at the time unpredictable. They posed a threat to order. Not everyone felt this way, however. Manuscripts with recipes containing mushrooms were written down during the second half of the 17th century.
They often also contained advice for picking them. There were even attempts to cultivate mushrooms, meaning growing them instead of searching for them in the wild. One of the first to be cultivated was Agarica's by Sporus, the white mushrooms we can all buy at the grocery store today. It was first farmed in France in the 1600s.
Agarica's by Sporus comes in two colors, white and brown, and the mature state comes in various sizes, which accounts for its various names, including chestnut mushrooms, portobello, button mushrooms, cremini, and champión de peri. However, while mushrooms were first cultivated in Europe in the 1600s, shiitake mushrooms have been cultivated in China since between 1,000 and 1,100 CE. Mycology, the study of mushrooms, began to gain traction in the mid-1700s. Carl Linnaeus included mushrooms in his new taxonomic classification system.
In the 1830s, some academic mycologists started information campaigns to teach people about which mushrooms were edible. There was a small contingent of women who were also fascinated by mycology around this time. Anna Maria Hussey, Mary Elizabeth Banning, Margaret Plews, and Beatrix Potter of Peter Rabbit fame, were viewed as eccentric by polite society, and were not well received by the males that dominated the field of mycology, but their contributions to the field were substantial. Not only did they contribute to the scientific field of mycology, but their illustrations helped regular people identify which mushrooms were safe to eat.
As time passed and technology advanced, mycologists began to notice that mushrooms often grew alongside specific trees and only during certain seasons. These patterns were studied and have aided in clearer identification. It's also led to biotechnical advances in food manufacturing, such as preventing certain crop-killing fungi and creating variations of helpful fungi, especially fungal yeasts, which are used in bread, wine, and beer. Wild mushroom picking may seem like a fun activity to do on holiday, but it's not without risk.
Foraged mushrooms should not be eaten unless identified as non-poisonous by a competent mycologist. Field guides do not provide sufficient details to differentiate toxic from non-toxic species. Please be careful, and if you really want to forage for mushrooms, forage with a seasoned professional. Mushrooms sold in supermarkets have been commercially grown on mushroom farms and are safe to eat.
There are some 70 to 80 species of mushroom that are deadly poisonous to humans. Many of them contain toxic alkaloids, such as muscarine, agaricine, and phthalene. I'm going to discuss the most toxic of these mushrooms, but first an ad must play. If these ads annoy you, you can get ad-free episodes by becoming an MCP patron on Patreon.
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That's b-i-t dot-l-y slash morbidpatron to sign up. You'll have my eternal gratitude. Discover a Victoria that never stands still. Visit us at toursandvictoria.com Despite great advancement in classification and use, only a few types of mushrooms can be cultivated commercially.
The rest must still be collected by hand from the wild. Separating edible from poisonous species still requires meticulous attention to detail. There is no single trait that can 100% differentiate a toxic mushroom from an edible mushroom. I'm going to discuss several mushrooms and fungi that are seriously poisonous, and one that has had a massive impact on historical events.
We've previously discussed aminida muskaria, which most people recognize even if they don't know its name. This red-capped, white-spotted mushroom has a constant presence in art from almost every genre, including video games, psychedelic art, and cartoons. It's easy to recognize, and most people already know it's toxic, so poisoning from this species is almost unheard of today. It's better known for its psychotropic effects, which I covered in detail in our Plants That Thrill episode.
So if you want more aminida muskaria, check out that episode. One of the most deadly mushrooms is aminida falloides, commonly known as the Death Cap mushroom. Other species known by this name are aminida verna and aminida verosa. Aminida falloides is responsible for 90% of the fungal poisoning deaths in the world.
This is because it's both incredibly poisonous and easily mistaken for several types of delicious edible species. As little as half a cap of aminida falloides contains enough toxins to kill a human, so even if you don't eat the whole cap, you're at risk of death. Even with modern medical intervention, there's a 50% chance of dying after eating just one death cap. The main toxin, an amotoxin called alpha-amanatin, which is acyclic peptide made up of eight amino acids, severely affects the liver and kidneys, causing them to shut down.
This makes for an incredibly unpleasant death. Symptoms start between six to 12 hours after ingestion, so many times the victim has forgotten that they ate the mushroom. Vomiting and diarrhea lead to dehydration and collapse. The victim's skin goes grey-blue, but they seem to be getting better until more vomiting occurs.
The victim then becomes drowsy, with periods of sudden irrationality and restlessness. They're pulse-weacons, and they slip into a coma and die of multiple organ failure, as the toxin destroys their liver and kidneys. Death usually occurs between four to nine days after ingesting the mushroom. If the victim does survive, they'll have major kidney and liver damage.
Treatments are mostly supportive, as there's no antidote. Activated charcoal, rehydration, and liver transplants are really the only things that might help. Liver transplants are difficult all on their own, as there are significant complications such as a weakened immune system. If there's one mushroom to know in order to avoid accidental poisoning, it's the death cap.
These mushrooms are large, with a yellowish to greenish cap, which also sometimes appears brownish. It's sticky to the touch and smells faintly to sickeningly sweet. The gills, the little lines just beneath the cap, are typically white, as is the stem or stipe. The stem has a large white frill just below the cap, and this is called the ring or annulus.
The lower end of the stem is usually bulbous. Death caps originated in Europe, but spread around the world in the late 20th century. They grow in any soils, but they prefer chalk. They're often found near oak trees.
In the US, they're usually found in cool coastal regions of the West Coast, the mid-Atlantic coast, and the northeast during the rainy season. They either grow all on their own or in small to large groups, usually below oak trees, but also sometimes beneath beach trees, especially in Australia. Also sometimes called a death cap is aminida verosa, but it's better known as the destroying angel mushroom. Several closely related species are also known by this name, including aminida verna, which is also called Fools mushroom.
Also called destroying angels are aminida bispori gera in eastern North America and aminida ochriata in western North America. Aminida bispori gera is considered to be the most toxic North American mushroom. Aminida verosa occurs only in Europe and northern Asia. All of these are all white mushrooms, which are incredibly toxic, but resemble the harmless and delicious button mushroom.
All their caps start out as egg-shaped and then expand into flat circles. They also have gills which are white, and their stems are thin and tall with a grooved annulus near the cap. The caps smell very similar to radishes. All destroying angels grow in woodlands, but a verna and a ochriata grow in the spring, while a verosa and a bispori gera grow in the late summer and autumn.
Destroying angels have both an amitoxin and phallotoxin in their caps, again, eating just one alpha aminatin-rich mushroom cap is enough to kill a person. The progression of poisoning is the same as the death cap. Symptoms take five to 24 hours to appear and include vomiting, diarrhea, convulsions, delirium, liver, and kidney failure, and then lead to death. Phallotoxins are bicyclic heptopeptides, meaning they are made up of two rings of seven amino acids.
While also highly toxic to the liver and kidney cells, they don't actually contribute much to the toxicity of destroying angels because they aren't absorbed through the human gut. Another mushroom that contains alpha aminatin and is surprisingly common in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States is connocybe filares. Also known as connocybrogosa, this common lawn mushroom can also cause organ failure within a few days of ingestion. Yet another is gallerina marginata, also known as the funeral bell and autumn skullcap.
These yellowish brown mushrooms are wood rotters that grow in connofer woodlands in the northern hemisphere and in Australia. There are several toxic species of European webcap mushrooms, also known as courtenarius. The deadly webcap, courtenarius rubellus, and the fool's webcap, courtenarius orelinus, are easily mistaken for several edible mushroom varieties. They are rusty brown and contain orelinine, which initially causes symptoms similar to the common flu, but develops into kidney failure, similar to the effects of alpha aminatin.
The symptoms take a lot longer to develop, however, which often leads to misdiagnosis. The lethality of these mushrooms was only discovered in 1950 when a small epidemic broke out in Poland, where over a hundred people became ill, 11 of which died. It was a mystery until 1957, when Polish physician Stanislav Kersmala discovered that everyone had eaten courtenarius orelinus. One fungus that may not be immediately lethal, but causes quite startling effects, is ergot.
Ergot is a fungus that grows on rye, a grass which is grown as a cereal crop by humans. It can be made into bread and has been used this way for hundreds of years. Ergot, or claviceps perpuria, forms a hard mass on the rye called asclorotium, which produces alkaloids. The alkaloid ergotamine can cause a wide range of physiological effects on circulation and neurotransmission, communication signals within the brain.
Ergotism, a severe pathological syndrome, can develop if ergot is ingested over a long period of time. There are two types of ergotism, one of which is known by the nickname St. Anthony's Fire, as it causes severe burning sensations in the limbs. This is due to the alkaloid's effect on the vascular system, causing it to constrict, meaning the blood vessels close up or shrink, slowing or cutting off blood from the limbs.
This can sometimes lead to gangrene or tissue death, which can then lead to the loss of limbs. The second type of ergotism is characterized by muscle spasms, fever, inability to speak, hallucinations, mania, paralysis, tremors and distorted perception. This type of ergotism occurs when the alkaloid affects the central nervous system. Both types can also cause nausea, seizures, uterine contractions, irrational behavior and convulsions.
Ergot is famous for causing epidemics throughout history. Ergot's clorotiums were found in the stomach of the bog body, Grobleman, who comes from the late third century BCE. Outbreaks of ergotism have been recorded in Norway at the beginning of the 11th century, resulting in the death of King Magnus II. Outbreaks have also been recorded in 12th and 17th century France, the latter resulting in an estimated 8,000 deaths.
Ergot has famously been indicated as the cause of the Salem witch accusations in the 1690s. This hypothesis has been heavily debated since it was proposed. I talked about it in the Salem witch trial episodes, so if you're interested, check those out. In a 2003 article published by Melvin J.
Eadie of Queensland University, it was pointed out that different strains of clovisaps perporia, as well as different soil conditions, may cause ergot to produce different concentrations of its alkaloids. This may explain the varying symptoms of ergotism in different outbreaks. Mushrooms are fascinating. Not only do they occupy marginal spaces in the natural world, growing at the edges of woods and meadows, they also straddle and weave through the categories we attempt to impose on them.
They are easily mistaken for one another, often with disastrous results. They keep surprising us, both with their looks and their abilities, which is why toxic mushrooms and all mushrooms for that matter, bring out our curiosity. The Morbid Curiosity Podcast is produced by H. Lloyd.
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