Amanita Muscaria - Taxonomy and Naming

Taxonomy and Naming

The name of the mushroom in many European languages is thought to be derived from its use as an insecticide, when sprinkled in milk. This practice has been recorded from Germanic- and Slavic-speaking parts of Europe, as well as the Vosges region and pockets elsewhere in France, and Romania. Albertus Magnus was the first to record it in his work De vegetabilibus sometime before 1256, commenting:

vocatur fungus muscarum, eo quod in lacte pulverizatus interficit muscas

The 16th century Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius traced the practice of sprinkling it into milk to Frankfurt in Germany, while Carl Linnaeus, the "father of taxonomy", reported it from Småland in southern Sweden where he had lived as a child. He officially described it in Volume Two of his Species Plantarum in 1753, giving it the name Agaricus muscarius, the specific epithet deriving from Latin musca meaning "fly". It gained its current name in 1783, when placed in the genus Amanita by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and sanctioned by Elias Magnus Fries.

The starting date was set as January 1, 1821, the date of the works of the "father of mycology", Swedish naturalist Elias Magnus Fries, and so, the full name was Amanita muscaria (L.:Fr.) Hook.. However, the 1987 edition of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature changed the rules regarding the starting date and primary work for names of fungi, and now names can be considered valid as far back as May 1, 1753, the date of publication of Linnaeus's seminal work. Hence, Linnaeus and Lamarck became the namers of the Amanita muscaria (L.) Lam.

English mycologist John Ramsbottom reported that Amanita muscaria was used for getting rid of bugs in England and Sweden, and bug agaric was an old alternate name. French mycologist Pierre Bulliard reported having tried without success to replicate its fly-killing properties in his work Histoire des plantes vénéneuses et suspectes de la France, and proposed a new binomial name Agaricus pseudo-aurantiacus because of this. One compound isolated from the fungus is 1,3-diolein, which is in fact an insect attractor.

An alternative derivation proposes that the term fly- refers not to insects as such but rather the delirium resulting from consumption of the fungus. This is based on the medieval belief that flies could enter a person's head and cause mental illness. Several regional names appear to be linked with this connotation, meaning either "mad-" or "fool's" Amanita caesarea. Hence there is oriol foll "mad oriol" in Catalan, mujolo folo from Toulouse, concourlo fouolo from the Aveyron department in Southern France, ovolo matto from Trentino in Italy. A local dialect name in Fribourg in Switzerland is tsapi de diablhou, which translates as "Devil's hat".