fly agaric

But it wasn’t psilocybin, the psychedelic drug in so-called “magic” mushrooms, but instead the world’s most charismatic fungi, the red and white fly agaric mushroom, known to scientists as Amanita muscaria.

In some versions of the theory, the shaman used reindeer to detoxify the fly agaric by feeding it to them and then ingesting their urine.

Well, fly agaric mushrooms are scattered across the globe, on every continent except Antarctica.

Chillum, a mushroom and hemp dispensary in Ybor City near Tampa Bay, sells grow kits, spores and mycology cultures for Amanita muscaria, the fly agaric mushroom.

Over the next weeks, my finds range from lavender-hued wood blewits to groups of the local variety of fly agaric, whose warty, fairy-tale caps age into yellow stars.