Amanita pantherina

Panther cap, false blusher, panther amanita, Αμανίτης ο πάνθηρας. Quite a rare find in north Europe, the Panthercap is much more common in southern Europe. The cap colour is very variable and cannot be used as a reliable identification feature: we have found Panthercaps with pale ochre caps as well as some very dark brown ones.

The Panthercap can contain the psychoactive chemical compounds ibotenic acid and muscimol as well as muscazone and muscarine (but they may not always be in significant concentrations). These are not the same as the psychoactive chemicals associated with the Liberty Cap, Psilocybe semilanceata, which is the most common (in Britain) of the so-called Magic Mushrooms; that little grassland mushroom gets (or perhaps that should be gives!) its kicks from quite different psychoactive compounds: psilocybin and baeocystin. Nevertheless, some people do treat the Panthercap as one of the so-called magic mushrooms.

The psychoactive compounds contained in Panthercaps are also toxins, and that means that this species must be treated as a poisonous mushroom. The pair of Panthercaps shown above were seen beside a track through a Cork Oak forest near Monchique, in the Algarve region opf southern Portugal. Panthercaps are much more common in southern Europe than they are in northern Europe.