Talk:Amanita pantherina var. pantherina

Not deadly, but very trippy
Good work Bill on changing that. You are correct. I believe a number of the poisoning stories may have been from people eating amanita phalloides and confusing it with the psychoactive versions they're after, describing it as those that they ate.

It's also correct that the psychoactives are considerably more prevalent in this species. Having tried both, muscaria did literally nothing and pantherina blew me into a land of confusion. One thing that may be of interest to people reading these articles is that the trip is absolutely nothing like psilocybe, lacking any kind of hallucinations for myself. It was more like my memory was stuck in a loop.

Bill does some tidying up
I just thought I'd reiterate the fact that Amanita Pantherina is NOT deadly poisonous. In fact, it contains the same active components as Amanita Muscaria, but in higher concentrations. True, it has caused a few fatalities, but so has virtually anything else when taken in sufficient quantities. See Jonathan Ott, Pharmacotheon (1993).

Coming across the cleanup tag, I took a decision to almost completely rewrite the article, retaining only the taxobox and external links. I have moved the text as it stood before my edits below, if anyone would like to try incorporating any of its facts back into the article.

--BillC 22:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC) Cap: 5-10 (12) cm / stem length: 6-10 cm A.pantherina is a species of Amanitas, a genus that features some of the deadliest mushrooms in the world like A.phalloides or some of the tastier like A.caesarea or even hallucinogenic and toxic ones, like A.muscaria. A.muscaria and A.pantherina  are similar looking in ways that some could confuse the two species. The latter is more dangerous because it is both more poisonous and more hallucinogenic than A.muscaria. I have come across many US internet sites in which A. pantherina is considered a variation of A.muscaria, some mention that A. pantherina is more dangerous, but some say that they only differ in the cap colour, which is wrong! There are various differences, easy to spot, if you are interested in mycology. A. pantherina has brown/pale orange cap, while A.muscaria is bright red. A. muscaria has yellow tones just under the cap surface, if you scratch it. This is one of the safest characteristics to distinct the two species. These both species have similar chemicals, but not in the same amount. Both species have ring and volva (base), from which the stem rises. A.muscaria has pleasant and sweet odour, while A.pantherina has rather unpleasant aroma. The volva of in A.pantherina is more well formed. A.muscaria can have much bigger cap (up to 20-30cm). Remember that mushroom characteristics change from place to place and from region to region. Many people around the world use A.muscaria dehydrated, as a natural halucinogenic, as it is relatively easy to distict, not without the risk of an unpleasant but not deadly stomach poisoning. A.pantherina should not be used in that way, because it might cause fatal poisoning.

Some other things about this mushroom, if someone wants to add them to the article in a sensible way (I'm tired) are: Smells like raw potato, cap is a little sticky under moist conditions, and it tastes mildly. The Panther mushroom can be confused with these mushrooms (and probably more): Amanita muscaria (fly agaric), amanita regalis, Amanita fulva (an edible mushroom), amanita spissa, macrolepiota rhacodes (edible) and agaricus sylvaticus (also an edible mushroom) Michaelll 02:44, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

panthera/origin of the name
I'm deleting the unsourced section suggesting that the name comes from a roman soldier connected to Jesus. It is not in-line cited, and as far as I can tell does not appear in any of the sources referenced for the article. If readded, please cite. Kgorman-ucb (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2011 (UTC)