than any of the Psilocybe species. It is collected in large quan- 
tities for use during spring and summer, when other varieties 
are not available, although it is distinctly less potent and more 
toxic than the others. In doses of about 20 carpophores, it 
produces an intoxication of rapid onset, marked by initial 
restlessness and possible nausea, prostration, and various 
physical symptoms, succeeded by dreamy feelings and visual 
hallucinations. On a weight basis, Panaeolus subalteatus 1s 
about half as potent as Psilocybe semilanceata. 
The toxicity of this Panaeolus does not deter people from 
frequently eating it. Possibly, the physical symptoms are due to 
unidentified compounds other than psilocybin and psilocin. 
These symptoms are more pronounced after ingestion of fresh 
mushrooms, less after ingestion of dried ones. Many users like 
to brew a tea from the dried mushrooms. Screening of this 
species for other alkaloids would be a profitable line of chemi- 
cal investigation. 
The above four species are the psilocybin-containing mush- 
rooms in widespread use in the Pacific Northwest. A number 
of other species are reported here, including Psilocybe stric- 
tipes Sing. & Smith (18) and several unnamed Psilocybe 
species, but definitive identifications are lacking, and they are 
used only by rare individuals, usually those with some 
mycological expertise. 
IV. 
Use of Amanita mushrooms as recreational drugs in North 
America dates back only to the recent identification of the 
ancient Aryan intoxicant soma with the fly agaric (26) and to 
numerous popular accounts of the psychoactivity of this 
species (27). Not long ago, many books called this famous 
mushroom deadly, and standard toxicological works listed its 
active principle as muscarine. (The alkaloid muscarine was 
named for A. muscaria, when it was first isolated in the mid- 
19th Century.) We now know that very few people die from 
eating the fly agaric and that it usually contains clinically insig- 
nificant amounts of muscarine (28). 
The psychoactive principles in Amanita muscaria are 
ibotenic acid and its decarboxylation product, muscimol, 
which is five to ten times more potent. Muscimol is a structural 
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