Amanita Habitat & Growing Conditions
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This spot is very interesting because it describes
many of the characteristic features of the natural habitat where this
mushroom is to be found. The mushroom was found on a road which I have
described running along the seacoast. This road was used at times by
neighbors as a horse trail, and, consequently, it was sprinkled here
and there with droppings. The association of the mushrooms and animal
manure is too well known to repeat here. The spot where Alice had
found her mushroom was about six feet off of this trail on the seaward
side. It was a depressed shallow spot that had poor drainage and when
the rain fell it tended to collect here. Therefore, with ample
moisture the forest growth was luxuriant in this area. The
mushroom-growing spot was in the center of a triangle formed by two
oak trees and one birch tree.
Over the years the rotting leaves, logs, and sticks had piled up a
rich spongy humus in this area. There was the salt of the sea air, the
nutrition of the oak and the birch, the shallow basin where the deep
soil was kept moist, and the ample shade which was broken only by the
cleft of the road through the trees. This is what one would call a
natural environment for the growth of the Amanita muscaria.
On July 27 it was raining lightly outside and the air was warm and
humid. Periodically thunder would roll from the mountains to the west,
and round their peaks the sky would occasionally be shattered by
lightning. Remembering the folk tales and the ancient legends about
the association between lightning and the growth of the mushrooms, it
occurred to me that this would be a good time to go and search for
them.
Betty, Harry, and I put on raincoats and rubber boots and sloshed off
into the woods. We first went to the spot which was now affectionately
called Alice's Cave to see if any more mushrooms had come. We were
delightfully surprised when we found a new bud of an Amanita muscaria
just pushing out of the moist soil. This was a wonderful opportunity
to watch the growth of Amanita muscaria. Harry went back to the
laboratory to get a camera and some color film while I just sat and
watched this marvel of nature heaving up the soil and thrusting its
proud head into the air.
I noticed that the mushroom looked like a small golf ball as it came
through the earth. The entire nob of the mushroom was covered by a
golden membrane which extended down below the ground to the root
level. I knew that as the mushroom grew further this membrane would
burst, and it would split up into little pieces which in the mature
plant would be the warts that we see on the cap. The lower part of the
membrane would become the annulus or little necktie of the stalk of
the mushroom. We were fortunate in being able to get a good series of
colored photographs of this mushroom during the next twenty-four hours
and were thus able to record every stage of its growth.
I spent every day of the following month, August, in scouring the
woods but had no luck in finding any more mushrooms. By this time I
had come to recognize those spots where it was likely that mushrooms
in general, and particularly Amanita muscaria, would grow. I realized
that a complex of circumstances was necessary before the mushroom
could grow. In walking, I always looked first for either oaks,
birches, pines or hemlocks. These were the trees most intimately
associated with the Amanita muscaria. Secondly, I looked for the shady
side of a hill or ravine where the moisture was ever-present, and
certain types of rocky outcroppings where humus had collected that
appeared to be favorable for the growth of the mushroom. But each time
I found one of these promising constellations of growth factors I
would be disappointed. The presence of these natural circumstances did
not necessarily produce the Amanita muscaria.
In being so intense while on the lookout for this particular species
of mushroom, I, too, began to feel, like the ancients, that the growth
of this mushroom could not be accounted for entirely on the basis of
natural circumstances. It is a fact, that even though Amanita muscaria
is known in many lands, as far as I know, it is one of the few
mushrooms that has resisted artificial cultivation in the laboratory.
I myself had converted an old wine cellar in the basement of the
laboratory into a small fungus farm. I used the spores from the
specimens we had found and set up many different natural conditions of
moisture, soil, and temperature in order to cultivate the mushroom.
But I never was able to cause one single specimen of Amanita muscaria
to sprout under these laboratory conditions. There is a legend among
certain Mexicans that mule manure is particularly favorable for the
growth of one of their species of sacred mushroom; but even this
material did not help to produce growth in the spores in my
laboratory.
In the latter part of August, I had to go to New York on business. I
chose to go by car because I had several stops to make on the way. I
was driving back from New York City on August 26, 1955, and decided to
take a different route up the Hudson Valley rather than the U.S. 1
coastal route. I wanted to see some of the Berkshire country at the
height of summer. I was crossing from the Hudson River Valley to
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on route U.S. 20, when I was stopped by a
policeman just outside of Pittsfield. He informed me that the heavy
August floods that had ravaged New England had washed out many bridges
for the next fifty miles, and I would have to detour. He suggested
that I continue north on Route 7, to North Adams, Massachusetts, and
there to take Route 2, the Mohawk Trail, eastward. Since I had never
been to this part of the country I was not too disappointed at this
detour.
In leaving North Adams, which is in the Berkshire Mountains, one
follows a very steep road up the mountain, and from its peak there
begins a long eastward descent down what is known as the Mohawk Trail.
Apparently the Mohawk Indians had used this notch in the mountains as
a trail. The road is winding and narrow and has some rather exciting
views overlooking the steep gorge below the road. There are very few
places where one can stop a car in order to admire this scenery. I had
come down the Mohawk Trail almost to the bottom and I had been keeping
one eye on the magnificent views around me. I noticed that the birch,
the oak, and the hemlock were clustered very heavily at certain
points, and I noticed that small brooks and ledge seepage kept these
areas fresh and moist. I decided that if I could find a place to stop
the car I would get out and investigate one of these likely-looking
places. As I was approaching Charle-mont I found a small space to the
right of the road where one could with safety park a car.
I got out of the car and found an old lumber trail striking off into
the woods. As I walked along this trail I found many specimens of
different kinds of mushrooms. It seemed that the time of the year was
just right for mushroom growth. After a half mile of this trail I
turned back, because I had not found a single Amanita muscaria. When I
came to within fifty yards of my car I suddenly spied a huge Amanita
muscaria shining with its golden luminosity through the shade of the
undergrowth. I rushed for it in order to make sure that it was not an
illusion. It was real. It was at least fourteen inches tall and had a
cap fully eight inches across. The cap was covered with several
hundred small warts. This was the first luck I had had in finding a
new source of the mushroom since early July.
I examined the area around the car square yard by square yard. All in
all I found nine such large specimens of Amanita muscaria within fifty
yards of the car. I extended my search for at least a half mile, in
all directions from my car, but the only place where I found any
mushrooms was the spot where I had by chance first stopped. This was
too exciting to leave, so I decided to stay in this area for the next
few days and continue my search.
I registered at a local motel, got some boxes of ice, and iced all my
specimens so that they would stay fresh. I went into the village and
talked to a number of the local inhabitants and asked them if they
knew anything about the kind of mushrooms I was seeking. I did not
find a single native who had ever seen the Amanita muscaria, or in
fact had even heard of it in that area. So I got no guidance from
these sources. The next day I was up bright and early and plunged into
the woods to continue my search. I walked up and down this area for
the next few days, and I believe that I must have covered five square
miles minutely, but I had no further finds. My lucky bag of the first
day was all I could come home with.
On September 1, I had gone to bed about one in the morning, which is
early for me, exhausted from the long trip to New York. The night was
foggy and there was a fine drizzling rain. This was just the kind of
night in which I can fall into a deep sleep and nothing can wake me
up. But I did not sleep well, evanescent dreams kept drifting through
my consciousness. I arose finally and looked at my watch. It was 4:00
A.M., I had been in bed for three hours. My wake-fulness was unusual;
and my friends can testify to the fact that I am the laziest man in
the world to wake up in the morning. I tried to recollect the dreams,
but they were all fragmentary and I couldn't reconstruct any of them.
So I tried to sleep again but I couldn't.
I got out of bed at four-thirty with the feeling that I had to do
something, so I bathed, dressed, and ate, and at 6:00 A.M. drove to
the laboratory which was about ten miles away. It finally occurred to
me that what I should do was go out and look for mushrooms since the
day was just perfect with the light rain and the fog. So I headed for
the seacoast on the foundation property.
I went to Alice's Cave and found three new Amanita muscaria that had
just budded through the ground. I began to feel keen, so I plunged on
into the woods, following my instincts. I walked down on the low-tide
rocks of the seashore and went north for about a quarter of a mile. To
my left rose a rather sheer stone cliff about fifty feet high, and to
the right was the sea. I slipped and slithered over the rounded rocks
on the beach. But of course this was no place to look for mushrooms.
So I decided to return to the shore above. I climbed up the face of
the cliff and as I broke through the underbrush at the top I found
myself in a clump of birch and oak, and there were two more specimens
of the golden mushroom. These, too, had just budded through the
ground.
Then I wandered north through the wet underbrush and found three more
specimens just budding through the ground. This was the first time I
had had an opportunity to watch so many Amanita muscaria coming up all
at once. I didn't pick any of these specimens because they were too
young, but just carefully noted their site in order to return later
when they were full-grown. I found them all in the woods among oaks
and birches.
Between the shore line of forest and the laboratory there was a large
open blueberry field. I decided to explore this blueberry field where
it adjoined the woods. And here again I found that there .were a few
specimens of the golden mushroom growing just at the edge of the shade
of the trees. Now these mushrooms were growing in an open field. Their
position was such that they were protected from the hot morning sun
because the forest was to the east of them, and the sun would probably
not hit them until about 11:00 A.M.
All in all, my early morning adventure was quite a success in that I
had found seventeen specimens of Amanita muscaria in two hours. I got
to the laboratory at 8:00 A.M. and announced my findings to my
colleagues. I told them that all the specimens I had found were newly
budded and probably would not mature for at least twenty-four hours.
But we decided to check them sooner to see how they were coming along.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, which was about eight hours after I
had first found these mushrooms popping through the ground, I went
back to look at my find. I was utterly amazed; the seventeen mushrooms
had become full-grown, and, of these, ten were almost rotten from the
heat of the sun and worm infestation. Here I discovered something
which none of the books had mentioned about the Amanita muscaria.
There is a certain small slug of a pale oystery color with two little
horns on its head which seems to live only for an Amanita muscaria
feast. These little slugs attack the mushroom from the base of the
stalk and ascend the stalk in its interior by eating their way along
it. This, of course, cuts off vital nutrition from the mushroom, and
so it collapses.
I had really learned something. These specimens, from the time I had
seen them as little buttons just peeking through the ground, were
completely full-grown and ripe within eight hours. I could only pick
seven of the mushrooms that I had earlier marked, because the rest
were crumbling as a result of being overripe and as a result of being
eaten away by the little slugs.
I alerted the rest of the staff and we again covered the entire
peninsula. After a three-hour search we came back empty-handed. There
were no other specimens of Amanita muscaria to be found. The only ones
present were the ones that I had uncovered earlier in the day.
In reflecting on this lucky haul of so many mushrooms on our property
all at once, I concluded that the natural conditions, that is,
temperature, season of the year, moisture, and other factors, were all
optimal for the growth of the Amanita muscaria. I decided to return to
my site on the Mohawk Trail in western Massachusetts to see if the
mushrooms were growing there as well as they were growing in Maine.
This was a three-hundred-mile drive, and I covered it rather quickly
the next day. I stayed at this site for three days, and my luck was
far better than anything I could have imagined. I found two hundred
and thirty-five first-class specimens of Amanita muscaria. This gave
me invaluable experience in learning where to find them, the different
habitat in which they grew, and the various colors, shapes, and
characteristics that they assumed under different conditions. This
insight was to be a great help to me later on when I began to study
the use of the Amanita muscaria by peoples in ancient times and in
far-off places; in their metaphors and allusions to mushrooms, I could
recognize readily references to the natural habitat of the Amanita
muscaria.
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Excerpted and paraphrased from "The Sacred Mushroom" by Andrija
Puharich
.
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