"I took a picture that I'll have to send ...

People here are friendly and content ...

People here are colorful and bright ...

The flowers often bloom at night ..."



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A genus of fungus, known particularly for its wicked-poisonous species. Some of the more dangerous of the Amanita family follow, with their more common (and interestingly deadly) names in italics:

The family is chiefly recognizable by two features - a swollen pouch (volva) at the base of the stalk and a thin veil that covers the entire mushroom when immature. The gills are an eggshell white and the caps have a white spore print. A hungry mycophagist (there are edible species of Amanita) should consider carefully that several of these features can be distorted or removed by the elements lest he risk cramps, nausea, delerium, diarrhea, liver failure and eventual death - the final gift of these 'angels.' The other possible outcome, if you've done your homework and are favored by the psychedelic gods, is a hallucinogenic experience that will, in all likelihood, curl your toes for a week.

If you find yourself well and truly poisoned by the flowers of guatemala your options are few and far between. Short of an actual mechanical purification of your blood via hemodialysis and a follow-up liver transplant, you have only three or four choices of substances that will compete with the phallotoxins you just ate - antamanide, silymarin (from the milk thistle), rifampicin and bile salts ( hey - guess what? One of Amanita's many side-effects is the cessation of bile flow! You're still fucked!). With all of these, however, you have only 20 minutes before it's what I like to call "too late." Essentially, the devious fungus delivers a blood poison while sumultaneously disabling the only mechanism you have to remove it - your liver.


So drink up! Raise a toast: this one is to the mighty American liver and the mellow, risk-free side-effects of social drinking.




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"There's something here I find hard to ignore ...

There's something that I've never seen before ...


Amanita is the name, they cover over everything ..."

Am`a*ni"ta (?), n. [NL. See Amanitine.] (Bot.)

A genus of poisonous fungi of the family Agaricaceæ, characterized by having a volva, an annulus, and white spores. The species resemble edible mushrooms, and are frequently mistaken for them. Amanita muscaria, syn. Agaricus muscarius, is the fly amanita, or fly agaric; and A. phalloides is the death cup.

 

© Webster 1913

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