Amanita muscaria (L. : Fr.) Lam.

Common name: Fly Agaric.

Description: The caps may be up to 10 cm in diameter and are usually bright red with concentric rings of white scales on the surface. The cap shape is usually convex, but as the fungus matures it can become plane. The gills are white and very finely serrate at their margins, crowded and free. The stem is generally at least 10 cm long and usually 12 cm thick. There is always a pendulous white veil. The stem base is swollen and usually there is a series of rings of universal veil fragments on both the swollen bulb and on the stem surface just above the bulb.  

The spores measure 810 × 67 µm, and are colourless, ellipsoidal, and turn bluish in iodine solution (see glossary). The spore print is white.

Substratum: The species is found on soil among pine needles; it is usually gregarious. 

Distribution: An exotic species known from Tasmania and from South Australia, Victoria and along the eastern coast and ranges to northern New South Wales in association with pine plantations (Pinus spp.); its range is steadily expanding. Where pine trees have escaped into eucalypt forest or woodland, the fungus will still be found in association with the pines. In southern gardens the species can also be found in association with species of birch (Betula spp.).

Notes: Amanita muscaria was accidentally introduced to Australia with exotic pines, probably early this century and in Victoria.  The fungus reached the Sydney region about 1974 after it was deliberately inoculated onto pine trees in a Kurrajong Heights garden at the eastern edge of the Blue Mountains. A resident visited Victoria and liked the pretty toadstools so much that specimens were taken north and buried at the foot of one of the pine trees in the garden. The inoculation was so successful that the fungus has now reached all the pine tree areas both on and west of the Blue Mountains. 

Until recently, Amanita muscaria was found only in association with pine trees but the fungus is now known to form mycorrhizae with Nothofagus cunninghamii (Southern Beech/myrtle) in Victoria and Tasmania. This is an extremely undesirable environmental outcome, as it may displace and thereby threaten the survival of the native Australian fungal species normally found in mycorrhizal partnerships with Nothofagus spp.  It does not seem to have a relationship with eucalypts, although this may be possible.

This species is quite toxic although not as deadly as folklore would suggest. Nevertheless, if it is accidentally eaten, medical treatment should be sought without delay. In Europe, its common name is derived from the practice of using the fungus to poison dishes of milk and sugar in order to kill flies. The Fly Agaric has been used by drug takers to produce a type of drunkenness, but the practice is quite dangerous and caused so many problems in early twentieth century Russia, that traffickers in the fungus were awarded the death penalty.