One of the most distinctive fungi growing in our Welsh woodland is the Fly Agaric. This is the fairy tale mushroom. Red background with white dots, little chap sitting on top with a fishing rod, well maybe not. The fungi is handsome, white stipe, ring and gills and that stunning red colour.
It grows under Birch and Larch and forms a very close relationship with the roots of these trees. The mycellium, the white threads under the ground, the "body" of the fungus, wraps around the finest of the tree roots. This structure is called a mycorrhiza and allows the tree and fungi to help each other. The fungi gets sugars from the tree and the fungi helps the tree take up minerals from the soil. In fact in many soils the trees will fail to thrive without the fungus. A lot of fungi form associations like this with trees which can be used to chase them down.
The name seems a little odd as well, it comes from the fact that the caps can be mashed with milk and used as bait to kill flies. I suspect that the smell of the milk on a warm day would probably make you wish you had kept the flies. The fungi is toxic it contains a psychoactive compound called muscimol, and has been used in Siberia in shamanistic rituals to communicate with the spirit world. The outlawing of Magic Mushrooms has not, as suspected, led to a rise in the use of Fly Agaric. The fungi can be eaten if boiled in lots of water, muscimol is water soluble, so avoid the water. Not really worth the effort as its taste is bland.
The main reason why I like them is they just look stunning. They have a magic quality to them, there one day, gone the next and usually appear in good numbers.
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