Folklore, history and botany of the wild fly agaric. Botanical specimen - not for consumption. 19+https://shroomsbloom.ca/en-cahttps://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/from-mario-to-the-mushroom-emoji/https://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/from-mario-to-the-mushroom-emoji/A power-up, a Smurf village, a keyboard glyph on two billion phones: why the one mushroom everyone can draw is Amanita muscaria, and nobody notices.Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTculturedesignamanitahttps://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/how-to-store-dried-amanita/https://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/how-to-store-dried-amanita/Air, light, heat and humidity are the four thieves of a dried specimen. Here is how a fly agaric cap keeps its brick-red colour and its structure for years.Wed, 22 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTcarespecimenguidehttps://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/the-red-cap-in-church-and-parlour/https://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/the-red-cap-in-church-and-parlour/From the Plaincourault fresco to Alice's caterpillar: eight centuries of the fly agaric hiding in plain sight - in chapels, manuscripts, icons and Christmas cards - and the fierce scholarly fight over what it means.Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThistoryarttheoryhttps://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/was-santa-a-mushroom/https://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/was-santa-a-mushroom/Flying reindeer, a red-and-white visitor, gifts through the smoke-hole: the famous theory that Santa Claus is a folk memory of the fly agaric - and what folklorists actually say.Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTfolkloretheorychristmashttps://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/boreal-shield-canada/https://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/boreal-shield-canada/A habitat map for Amanita muscaria: the trees it partners with, the ground it likes, the two-week window when the red caps rise, and the corner of British Columbia our own caps come from.Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTbotanyhabitatcanadaborealhttps://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/field-id-guide/https://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/field-id-guide/How to recognize the fly agaric with confidence, and how to tell it from the caps that copy its colour, a botanist's checklist, not a forager's.Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTbotanyidentificationfield-guidehttps://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/babas-forest/https://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/babas-forest/Мухомор: the fly-killer at the window, the trickster of the fairy tale, and the red cap that Slavic folk art never stopped painting.Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTprovenancefolkloreslavichttps://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/reindeer-and-drum/https://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/reindeer-and-drum/The steppe's oldest field note: how Koryak and Evenki tradition carried the fly agaric through winter, and why a red-and-white gift-giver still flies with reindeer.Sun, 12 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTprovenancefolkloresiberiahttps://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/odins-wager/https://shroomsbloom.ca/blog/odins-wager/Where the sagas keep their mushrooms, why the berserker theory refuses to die, and what the north actually remembers about red.Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTprovenancefolklorenorse