ABSTRACT
Most mushroom collectors have found frequent evidence in the form of carpophores that have been partially eaten that animals of one type or another occasionally use various fleshy fungi as food. Before the 12th century A.D. it was believed in the Scandinavian countries that the fly agaric, Amanita muscaria, was a hallucinogenic fungus and could be used to induce certain symptoms of schizophrenia. A variety of mushrooms of one type or another is collected and marketed in the Orient. Fungus used in the Orien is the Ear Fungus which may be cultivated by primitive methods but is commonly collected in the wild and dried for market. Of the several thousand species of fleshy fungi which occur in the United States, an extremely low percentage of them is represented by poisonous types and many are better flavored than the commercially grown mushroom.
