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The “Magic Mushroom” With a Side of Death-Cap Chemistry
On a rotting palm in Florida, scientists found a fungus that makes both psilocybin and amatoxins. Its genes suggest it came by the combination in two very different ways.
By Claudia G. Petersen
What sort of mushroom are we talking about? The sort people seek out for a psychedelic experience, or the sort they’re warned about in the same tone of voice used for live electrical wiring?
We have found this a convenient distinction. The mushrooms, who were never consulted, appear to have exercised their right of reply.
On a moss-covered palm trunk in a Florida wetland, fungal researcher Andrew Kunik found a little brown mushroom called Galerina indica. In a study published on 11 November in Current Biology, Kunik and colleagues reported that the fungus produces psilocybin and psilocin, the principal psychedelic compounds in so-called magic mushrooms. It also produces two compounds from the amatoxin family, whose more notorious members can cause fatal liver failure. It’s the first mushroom species known to make both kinds of chemical.
One of the more unnerving things about it is how little the mushroom has done with this information, visually…
