Finding magic shrooms in the queen's garden may sound like the plot line for a trippy dream, but it actually happened. Hallucinogenic fungi, known as magic mushrooms, were discovered in Queen Elizabeth's garden at Buckingham Palace.
Gardening expert and TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh found the trippy treats while exploring Buckingham Palace's 40-acre private plot while on a tour for the ITV gardening show appropriately called The Queen's Garden.
Titchmarsh unearthed the red and white spotted fungi called Amanita muscaria, also known as fly agaric while filming alongside ecology expert Professor Mick Crawley.
"I won't be eating any of that," Titchmarsh said, asking Crawley if the mushrooms were edible.
"It's eaten in some cultures for its hallucinogenic affects," Crawley responded. "But it also makes people who eat it very sick.The old-fashioned thing to do was to feed it to the village idiot, then drink his urine because you get all of the high without any of the sickness."
Titchmarsh said that he would be sticking to traditional mushrooms.
It appears that the royals don't indulge in the wild mushrooms either. A spokesperson from Buckingham Palace confirmed the find, but revealed that fungi from the garden is not used in palace kitchens. "There are several hundred fungi species in the palace garden, including a small number of naturally occurring fly agaric mushrooms," he said. However, their use it only to help trees take in nutrients they need.
Magic mushrooms naturally contain the drug psilocybin, which gives it hallucinogenic properties. Fly agaric mushrooms on the otherhand, do not contain psilocybin, but do contain hallucinogenic chemicals muscimol and ibotenic acid.
The Queen's Garden will air on Christmas Day and will show an entire year in the Buckingham Palace garden.
[Photo Credit: Ralf Bruggmann/Flickr]
