”I am spotting a lot of puffballs lately and on a walk last week with @basilsfungifarm and we found a fly agaric after at its earliest growth stage of its fruiting body.
GeorgeFlavour Fred
The fruiting body starts off as an egg shape in the ground looking all tiny like the one in the video. Before erupting and showing its pigment and warts being the remnants of the universal veil it’s grown through. At this point the mushroom is young and preparing its spores for dispersal once open.
The microscopic spores are generated like an assembly line forming all over the gills in huge volumes. The gills on the Amanita species are white and are protected by a skirt that falls away when the mushroom (fruiting body) is ready to release them.
As we found it in all the stages of growth it felt important to point out and also the risk where people are interested in puffballs. I felt it was important to point out care should be taken if looking for the pure white spongy marshmallow-like interior of a puffball rather than the structures you’ll find when cutting open an Amanita still in its early stage of growth with the universal veil intact.
It’s a big risk as the family has the death cap, destroying angel which are deadly due to their amatoxins. The Fly agaric also has toxins and psychoactive compounds so another risk – too many risks in this family for me. Unless you know how detoxify these mushrooms for whatever purpose (medicinal/asking your ancestors key questions) I’d not risk consuming them at all.
