Welcome to 2012 at Two to Tübingen. Chris and I managed to get away during the past week, and I’m still sorting through my photos and notes to add to the blog. I hope to have some of them ready to go starting tomorrow. Thanks for all the comments on the blog posts last week; I’ll be following up on most of the comments and questions later this week, as well. But I do want to follow up on one today, one is connected to toadstools that come with a bit of a kick.
Before you get concerned about what we did on our vacation, though, 😉 let me reassure you that the title of this blog post actually comes from the information about that “lucky mushroom”, which was the German expression that I posted about last week. Thanks to our friend Tatjana’s comment, where she gave a link to information about lucky mushrooms in German, I now know what kind of mushroom is referred to in the “lucky mushroom” expression in German:
"Lucky" Mushroom variety (photo from Wikimedia commons)
Doesn’t that look like something straight out of a storybook idea of a toadstool? In fact, all the drawings in the kids books are indeed based on this type of red-topped mushroom. Who knew.
As it turns out, there’s actually a lot to know about this kind of mushroom. Since the link Tatjana provided was all in German, here’s a link to the full description of the mushroom in English in Wikipedia, for those of you who don’t speak German. If you do look at the entry, be sure keep reading to the end and you’ll see that there are hallucinogenic drugs, magic urine and the idea that reindeer can fly that are part of other stories surrounding this mushroom.
But mostly, I’ve gotta think that the “luck” involved with this mushroom is not dying from eating it – it’s poisonous by nature, albeit not usually fatally so. At least that’s the claim, at any rate. Although it looks pretty distinctive and not hard to spot .. and avoid … it turns out the white spots wash off in the rain, which then makes this mushroom resemble a non-poisonous one. Tricky.
OK, so not dying from eating a pretty red mushroom, if you can’t know for sure if it’s going to be fatal or not… yes, I can see how that would be considered lucky. 😉
I have heard the adage if it is red don’t eat it referring to muchrooms and berrys. Of course the exceptions are noted one of course is strawberries, which in NAtive American culture here in Upstate NY mean lots…they have a strawberry festival.. That really has nothing to do with the mushrooms but somehow it is connected in my mind. red. It is all about how I mental give Colors catagories that subsume all other catagories. I think I said that right. Another words, Color is my Kingdom mentally under the Phylum of Being. Essence ok enough.